


A Wall of Stars

by MarlainaShade (LittleLostStar)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Classical Music, Dark Sam, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Fire, I promise, Indie Music, Intense, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostStar/pseuds/MarlainaShade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, Destiel, following Season 4 canon a little bit. Dean has been getting along okay since his father's death—until one of John's journals, damaged from fire, arrives at his doorstep. He seeks out restoration expert Castiel to help solve the journal's many mysteries, and finds a lasting friendship. But Sam is self-destructing for seemingly no reason, Dean is struggling with feelings he can't quite understand, and the journal's burned pages contain a horrifying secret which will bring Dean and Cas impossibly close and simultaneously threaten to tear them apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Things Aren't Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Here we are again.  
> I've had a long career of writing fan fiction, but I was sure I'd seen the last of my inspiration almost a decade ago—until Supernatural came along. This story is my chance to write a fully realized piece of fiction as an adult, and it's been an amazing experience so far. Please, by all means, drop me a review, positive or negative, and let me know what you think. A billion thanks go out to DestielRuinedMyLife and Jennifer B for patiently being my beta readers for over a year so far!  
> Here are the things you may want to note: first, this story involves mention of sex, drugs, death, addiction, and depression. Second, you'll notice a huge amount of music in this story; every chapter begins with a set of lyrics, and the chapter titles are (usually) songs or lyrics by that same quoted artist. I work with music a lot in real life, and it's a big part of my creative process. If you're interested, I do recommend that you look up the stuff I've quoted; it'll give you a sense of the soundtrack to the story, if you will. It's by no means obligatory, of course, but I hope it interests at least a few of you.  
> Okay! Enough twaddle. On to the story!

“Welcome to the inner workings of my mind  
So dark and foul I can't disguise  
Can't disguise  
Nights like this  
I become afraid  
Of the darkness in my heart.” - MS MR

 

The first time it happened, he thought it was maybe just a nightmare. It certainly felt like one. But now it's more frequent, and every time it's the same.

He snaps awake, twisted in the bedsheets, grimy with sweat. He stares at the little cracks in the ceiling, and feels the wave of anger come. It bowls him over and pulls him beneath the surface, far more powerful than anyone could withstand. Pure, white-hot, high-pitched rage.

He knows that getting out of bed disturbs Jess, so he doesn't move a muscle. In those moments, those dark moments, he's so frighteningly angry that he genuinely doesn't know what he'd do if she woke up and complained about it. His hands feel like crushing blocks of muscle. So he remains stock still—carved from the toughest stone, he imagines, into the shape of a man in bed with one hand tucked under his head and the other clutching the blankets to his chest in a fist so tight that it aches the next morning.

Sam Winchester is angry. He's angry at a level he didn't even think was possible.

The first time it happened, it frightened him so much so that he felt hot tears well up in his eyes and trickle down his neck. His sniffs woke Jess, and she held him in her arms and told him she loved him and that everything would be okay.

It's not that he doesn't believe her anymore. He does. He knows she loves him. But it's starting to feel like it doesn't matter.

It's been a little over three years since Sam woke up in a hospital bed, reeling from a car accident he can barely remember. He got out with a fractured clavicle, and luckily not much more; when he lies awake fuming with rage, he imagines he can still feel the little cracked hairlines along the bone.

He and Dean survived. His father didn't.

So much has changed since that horrible night that Sam feels like he's an entirely different person. Sure, he and Dean get together for beers and hang out and go driving, like they used to before things went to shit. He'd always looked to his big brother for support and love—and for parenting, when their dad would take off for weeks at a time. But now Sam looks at Dean and sees that there's something different—something broken.

And then Sam began to wake up at night, consumed with rage.

In the daylight hours, the thought of it haunts him. He puts it away into a drawer in his mind, the same way he's always dealt with the rough parts of life. He works as hard as he can to look himself in the mirror each morning and see a human being.

On the outside, he genuinely loves his life: he loves school, he loves his girlfriend, he loves his brother. He loves all the indie music he plays while he goes jogging and the fact that he cooks dinner on a rotating schedule and they're starting to look at mortgages half-seriously. He loves having a semblance of normalcy after years of chaos. He even plays  _ Halo _ .

But in the darkest part of the night, Sam knows that it's all so much window dressing, because things aren't okay.


	2. The Night You Can't Remember

“Before you left your garrison,  
You had a drink—maybe two.  
You don't remember Paris, hon,  
but it remembers you.” - The Magnetic Fields

 

Here is a very short list of catalysts that can change your life forever:

Fire.

An acceptance letter that does not belong to you.

A phone call.

Brake lines.

A knock at the door.

 

Dean Winchester is about to settle into a session of _Call of Duty_ when he hears the knock. He sighs, annoyed, but pads down the hall ( _I really have to get this stupid carpet removed_ ) to the front door and checks the peephole.

There's a strange man standing on Dean's front stoop. Handsome guy, though a little round in the cheeks, with wavy hair and a mischievous spark in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” Dean calls through the door.

“Yeah, the name's Ed, I have a delivery for you.”

“...I'm not expecting anything, thanks.”

The guy looks directly at the peephole, and Dean unwittingly flinches at his gaze. “Listen, bud, I have something here that belonged to a John Winchester, and this is where he lives. Can I just give you this, please?” He holds up the package: a sheaf of papers and a small book that looks somewhat familiar, all bound in a large manilla envelope.

Dean's stomach drops to his toes as he unlocks the door and stands back to let it open. Ed isn't from any delivery company—he's not in a uniform, at least—and on the street beyond Dean can see an old Lincoln has been left running, waiting.

“There we go. Now can you take this?” Ed asks, shoving the papers into Dean's hands.

“What—where did you get these? What is this?”

His eyes sparkle mischievously. “A gift. From me to you, with love and kisses.”

Dean's brows knit and his palms itch to punch this smug motherfucker. “I don't want it. John Winchester is dead.”

“Oh, I know, Dean,” Ed says. “And I have to say, you grew up into a decent-looking gent. Ta!” He turns to go, but Dean reaches out and grips him strongly by the shoulder, stopping the guy in his tracks.

“How do you know who I am?!” Dean snarls, consumed by the old paranoia that dogged his childhood and still makes him squirrelly about strangers who know too much.

Ed puts his hands up in surrender. “No harm meant, my man. I knew your father, years ago—while he was working. He left those with me.”

“Were you a client?”

A shake of the head. “No. More like...a fan, I suppose. I had a respect for his line of work, and we met on neutral ground a few times. My line of work lent itself to the secure storage of personal items, and your dad dropped something off on his way out of town. Never came back for it; in fact, even I forgot about him after a time. A few weeks ago I was going through some stuff in my lair, so to speak, and came upon this.”

Now that the papers are in Dean's hand, he can see that they're old and worn, mostly faded. The journal—John kept many, but Dean's never seen this one before—is partially burned and blackened from smoke damage.

Dean feels queasy. John Winchester had a bad history with a lot of things, but fire might just be the worst of them.

He waits until the shock passes before he speaks again. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“I don't know, dude. Make a bonfire, if you want.”

“Maybe I will,” Dean replies sardonically. “Looks like a useless pile of trash.”

Ed's face widens into a smug grin. “Except you won't, Dean Winchester. There are too many answers you still don't have.” His smile gets bigger and Dean's face goes grey. “John was involved in some dark business; you know it, I know it. However much you may pretend like things are all settled down now, I'm willing to bet he shuffled off this mortal coil with a shoelace factory's worth of loose ends.”

He's right. Of course he's right.

Ed snaps Dean out of his reverie, holding out a business card. “Here. Someone who can help make things a little clearer.”

Dean takes the card and reads it: _C. James Novak, Professional Document Restoration and Archival Preservation_. The address is an office at the research library of the local university. When Dean looks up, the strange guy is already climbing into the Lincoln and speeding off.

Inside, Dean places the envelope on the hallway table and looks at the photographs on the wall—of his mother and father's engagement days, of the Winchester family when they were still whole, and of Dean and his little brother Sam grinning over beers. _Dig up those you've buried,_ the photos seem to say. _They're not dead._ Dean's face feels hot from a nonexistent flame.

“No,” he protests softly to himself. “No. I'm done, dad. I'm done.” But even as he grabs his coat to go drink away this new awful anxiety, he knows it's a lie. He leaves the card on top of the envelope instead of throwing it out.

That's one way life can change.

 

And for the record:

You can be four years old, and shaken awake by your dad in the middle of the night. The look on his face makes you want to cry but there's no time—and you smell the smoke and hear screaming. There isn't even time to grab your teddy bear; instead your dad pushes your infant brother into your arms and tells you to run outside as fast as you can and you do it, running all the way across the lawn to collapse in the dew-ridden grass. The baby's little pink face scrunches up against the heat, squalling inconsolably.

Your dad comes to get you an undetermined amount of time later, and when you ask where your mother is his face breaks and you start to cry just from the sight alone.

That's another way life can change.

 

**(8:00 pm)**

The Wet Lion has an _absurd_ name, but it's an okay bar overall, and against all odds Dean Winchester really likes it there. Just the right amount of grit to make it appealingly dive-y, without actually being a true dive bar. The low lighting and occasionally sticky decorations keep the trendy college kids away, and the beer selection is _just_ ostentatious enough to drive out the truckers and hustlers. In fact, the combination only sits well with a select type of patron, and therefore it's always easy to get a seat and hear yourself think. But it has a fucking _absurd_ name.

So now Dean is sitting in a booth, waiting for the waitress to get him a new beer. When he waits, he watches people.

It's mostly weeknight regulars: a few grad students, some middle-aged men drinking away the memory of their divorces along the far side of the bar, and a girl with short blue hair reading a copy of _Watchmen_ and nursing her microbrew. Dean comes here more often than he'd like to admit; there's a cozy bleakness that appeals to the parts of his psyche he doesn't like to think about very much. But tonight there's a disruption in the atmosphere—a blaring kink in the system, undeniable and obvious. And he's sitting at the bar, wearing a tan trench coat and sipping tequila with mechanical, miserable dedication. It's mesmerizing—and a little bit pathetic—to watch as he takes a sip from his shot glass and fights off a grimace again and again. This is not a drinker, Dean thinks. This is not a guy who knows how to get drunk. Bless him, he's trying, but it's like watching a hippo trying to dance ballet.

Dean's not normally one for charity cases ( _that's a filthy lie, you pick up strays all the time)._ He's developed the keenly honed loathing of pity which comes from being a charity case himself. But nonetheless he slides out of the booth and approaches the bar to take a seat beside the guy in the trench coat.

“Hey, man, don't take offense at this, but drinking: you're doing it wrong,” Dean says. Trench Coat looks up, startled, greeting Dean's gaze with a pair of incredibly clear blue eyes.

“Excuse me?”

Dean tosses a bill on the bar. “Gord. Two beers, please?” The bartender complies, and Dean passes a pint to the guy. “Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to judge, but if you want to drink yourself to your happy place you're better off with beer. Things only end badly when you dance with the devil water.”

“I...I don't want to go to my happy place,” the little guy replies tentatively.

“Well, your sad place, then. Whatever it is you're trying to do here.”

“I'm not trying to do anything.”

Dean shrugs, taking a drink of what turns out to be a pleasantly light wheat ale. “Sure you are. There's a long and proud history of young men drinking themselves blind in bars like this; don't be ashamed. What's your drama? Girlfriend throw you out?” He looks Trench Coat up and down for a second. “...Boyfriend throw you out?”

Trench Coat blushes, and Dean nearly chokes on his beer because _Jesus, has this guy been raised in a fucking middle school?_

“No, nothing like that,” Trench Coat replies. “It's a long story. Difficult to explain.”

“...And you're hoping to drown a long story in tequila, the patron liquor of creating awkward long stories that are difficult to explain.”

A small chuckle. “I suppose I'm not used to this sort of thing.”

“Y'think? Take it from a long-serving professional drunkard: tequila is only appropriate if you are a college girl on spring break. Or trying to seduce a college girl who's on spring break.”

“I left my short shorts in Cabo last April,” comes the deadpan response. Dean snorts, and Trench Coat breaks into a smile.

“I'm Dean, by the way.” He holds out a hand and is pleased at his new drinking partner's firm shake.

“I'm Castiel Novak”

“You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me.”

“I'm sorry?”

Dean's face feels hot. “Uh, nothing. Sorry. Never mind. Nice to meet you, Castiel.” _Look at you, getting jumpy about a man's last name. Dumbass._

Castiel offers a small smile. “Or Cas, if you like.”

Dean considers Cas for a moment. He's got delicate features—the aforementioned blue eyes balanced by full lips and a well-carved jaw. He looks as if he broods for a living, but there's something about his tentative mannerism that sticks in Dean's puzzle-solving craw. When his brother Sam gets into stuck-up mode he's totally immutable against Dean's good-natured riffing; Castiel, on the other hand, has hints of a sense of humor—it's refreshing. There's something about him that Dean can't quite put his finger on—something otherworldly, and complicated, and interesting. Last name similarity notwithstanding.

“So what's got you down, Cas?”

“I have a friend who has been...away. Now she's coming back,” Castiel says simply, before draining his pint with alarming speed.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Castiel nods. “It's been a few months.”

Dean puts a hand on Castiel's shoulder and turns him so that they're facing one another squarely. “Cas,” he says seriously, “are you friends with a felon?”

Castiel's brow furrows. “What? No! She's, well, she's my roommate, basically.”

Dean's eye narrows. “Are you sure? Because there are some pretty crazy chicks out there. I should know; my boss's wife and stepdaughter have both threatened me with shotguns. And they _like_ me.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm really not,” Dean says. “Ellen and Jo are tough broads. Salt of the earth, don't get me wrong, but...” The door bells chime, and his voice trails off as he sees two women come into the bar and take a seat at a nearby booth. One of them, a brunette with tiny curls bunched tightly against her head, stands out like a beacon, flaring bright, overwhelming him with a memory—

( _No. No, no. Dad. DAD. Get up. Please, get up. SOMEONE HELP ME—_ )

His face doesn't show it, but internally his heart drops to his toes. The safety of his beloved Wet Lion has been breached, and now Dean Winchester feels stripped naked and flayed raw.

“...Dean?”

“Hang on a second, would you, Cas?” Dean asks absently, never taking his eyes off the women. “I'll be right back.” He slides off the stool and goes over to the booth, hands shaking, because he knows that there is no way this is going to end any way but painfully.

 

Castiel knows he should be weirded out about being approached by a random man at a bar—if only because that's just not what men really do—but he has to admit that he's actually enjoying himself. Based on their limited interaction, Dean is a man of easy outward charisma and mysterious inner psyche—the epitome of still waters running deep. For years, Castiel's circle had consisted entirely of fellow academics; they were wonderfully intellectual, but also sensitive and petty and serious. Towards the end, Castiel himself had become sensitive and petty and serious, and that's when he'd known it was time to move. He hasn't made many friends since coming out west.

He tries not to peek, but he can't resist watching out of the corner of his eye as Dean approaches the young women at the booth. He specifically speaks to one of them: a slight girl with a head of short brunette curls. Her face makes it seem as though Dean is a ghost; when Castiel sees her shoulders shake with an involuntary sob, he turns back to the bar, orders one more beer, and busies himself by mentally pondering the conversational avenues by which men become friends. He's that type of analyst; it's been joked that Castiel tries to quantify every relationship he has, but truth be told it's the best way for him to figure out new people. He likes finding out what makes a man tick, and Dean is completely—refreshingly—different.

There was something about his attitude—the willingness to approach a stranger in public, to offer a hand of friendship with no obvious benefit for himself. Dean seems like a man who isn't burdened by over-thinking, and that's something Castiel needs to do more. So he plans to try to establish a camaraderie. _Ask lots of questions. Don't talk about yourself too much. Don't talk about work nonstop. Ask more questions. Listen and follow up._

When Dean returns to the bar, Castiel is quite ready to have a witty and intelligent conversation in which he gets to know his new drinking partner, except that Dean's skin is very pale and his lips are tightly drawn.

“Dean? Is everything okay?”

Dean nods, but he starts to grab his coat. _Damn_ , thinks Castiel. _Damn damn damn. Didn't even get a chance._

“Cas, I don't know you that well and you don't know me, but what do you say we get just _royally_ fucked up right now?”

Castiel furrows his brow. “Wait, what?”

Dean nods towards the door. “I have liquor at my place, it's only a few blocks away. And I am in the rare mood to drink with a buddy.”

“But weren't you just saying about beer—”

“—I know what I said, but I feel that we would benefit from whiskey. A lot of whiskey. You coming?”

It's like being invited to go for a stroll with the Pied Piper. Castiel pays up and follows Dean out the door, out into the chilly wind and whatever oblivion awaits him.

 

**(11:00pm)**

Dean and Castiel are slumped on the couch in Dean's living room, with an empty bottle of scotch and another one just opened. They have traded the traditional drunken comparisons: where they were educated (Cas: “Nothing but prep schools until graduation.”), favorite guilty pleasure movie (Dean: “Don't tell anyone—no, seriously, shhhhhhhhh...I loved _The Notebook._ Now _shhhhhhh_ .”), preferred supermodels (Cas: “...is Tyra Banks still a thing?”), pet peeves (Dean: “Cobbler is _not_ pie. That waitress in Reno was a filthy liar.”) and best drunk story (Castiel: “None, really, except for the time I found out that this guy liked _The Notebook,_ and—hey! Don' throw coasters at me! Those coasters had wives and family!”). Now Castiel's eyes are slightly unfocused, and Dean keeps rubbing his hand across his face. A lull falls across the room as both men assess their own intoxication, and then Castiel takes a slow, brave breath.

“Dean, who was that woman you were talking to?”

“Hmm?”

“The, uh. The woman in the Wet Lion.”

Dean's smile fades in an instant, and he pours himself more than a generous helping of scotch. “It's personal,” he says, voice suddenly rough.

“I don't mean to pry. I just...I dunno,” Cas sighs. “I do not drink well.” Despite himself, he starts to giggle, but his mirth is cut short when he sees the look on Dean's face.

“She was the nurse who looked after us when my father died,” he says softly, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands dangling between them.

“I'm so sorry, Dean,” Cas says.

“It's okay. It was just rough to see someone who was involved,” Dean says, almost wistfully. “Three years ago my dad and Sam and I were driving back from having dinner. Sam had just announced he was going to law school instead of coming back to work with us, and my dad was royally pissed instead of proud. They were arguing, and so my dad didn't see, and we got T-boned by a semi that blew through its stop sign at eighty miles per hour.”

“Jesus.”

Dean's voice is steady, all drunken mirth drained away. “Sam got lucky; he cracked his collarbone and had bruises, but that was it. I broke four ribs and was in a coma. Cerebral edema.”

“Brain swelling.”

“Yeah,” Dean says with a shrug.

“...are you...”

“I'm fine now. I woke up and I was an orphan.” Dean pours another shot into Castiel's glass. “So...I guess I'm not fine. I don't know. Sam took it pretty hard and he won't really talk about it much.”

“...and the woman?”

Dean looks down into his drink. “She was a nurse there. I think she was one of our main caretakers and...I remember her face, when I woke up. She was the first one in the room when Dad died, and I think she felt responsible. She sent flowers to the funeral.”

“So what did you say to her?”

Dean shrugs again. “What can you say? Hi, I guess. Asked her how things were going. It was awkward. Now I'm drunk.”

Castiel sits up straight. He doesn't know what to say; this is not how the conversation was supposed to go. He feels a miserable unbalance growing between them, though it could all just be in his head, and _wow_ that scotch goes down smooth, he could have sworn Dean had just poured this round but now it's already gone.

He hears Dean chuckle a little. “This is all pretty heavy stuff to bring up on a first meeting,” he jokes. “I promise I'm not this much of a downer in real life, Cas. Most days I'm certifiably hilarious. Unless you ask Sa—”

“—My two brothers are dead,” Castiel interrupts. The words flow from his mouth unaided—his eyes widen as he realizes he's said them. But he feels an overwhelming urge to reciprocate, to balance the scales, to reach out and reassure Dean that he's not alone. “Michael and Luke. Those were their names, my brothers. There was a fire.”

Dean's right eyebrow has climbed up his forehead; he's surprised at the outburst—surprised Castiel had that much to say in one go, if he's honest. Right now he's too drunk to put two and fire together.

Cas looks away, grabs the whiskey bottle, tries to pour into his glass, and then gives up and just takes a direct swig. “They were fighting. Luke was in a mood and Michael was usually the only one who could calm him. He told me he was going to hash things out, and then...the place was on fire. We never talked about it. No one would—” Castiel is cut off by a sudden weight; Dean has reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. The silence leaves him feeling embarrassed and remarkably naked. “I...well, yeah. That happened.”

Dean's Adam's Apple bobs as he swallows, and then he smiles crookedly. “It's possible we're getting off to sort of an intense start, don't you think?” he slurs.

“I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't mean to make things awkward, I just...”

Dean shakes his head. “I get it, dude. Not a problem. Okay; how about we scratch this all and totally start over?” He puts the glass down on the coffee table and holds out his hand. “Hi. I'm Dean Winchester. I work at an auto mechanic shop with my godfather. I like rock music, hamburgers, and long walks on the beach. And our friendship is over if you tell me you're a vegan.”

It's such an absurd break to the tension that Castiel can't help it: he bursts out laughing.

Dean feigns outrage. “What? Is it the long walks on the beach thing? Because a man likes to feel sand between his toes,” he says in mock-defense, which just adds to the hilarity.

Cas fights to bring himself back under control and then wipes his eyes. “S-sorry. It's just...this conversation is insane,” he manages between chuckles. “I don't think I've ever failed this badly at making a first impression.”

Dean cracks up too. “It's pretty bad.”

“Castiel Novak,” Cas finally says. “I come from a large and impressively fucked-up family and fled all the way to the other side of the country to ensure I never have to deal with them again.” Dean's expression grows serious and he raises an eyebrow, until Cas quickly adds: “Oh! Right. Reformed vegetarian.”

“Good man. Cheers to that. Now let's finish this bottle of scotch before I think too much.”


	3. I Am Not Afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope people are enjoying the story! Leaving a few words would be much appreciated—it's been literally years since I wrote fanfic, so it's a little scary throwing this out into the void. That said, I like this chapter a lot and I hope you do too.

“Remember when I told you all about the father-ghost?  
He whispers at you when you try to pull:  
'You’re an imbecile and your limbs carry lumber.'  
The shadow of violence is the shepherd of sense, and when I hit the fence  
I had a hand on the wheel and a hand on the dial.” - Owen Pallett

.

The next thing Dean is aware of is noise, pure and excruciating, without sense or meaning. Screaming like a chorus of banshees. It vaguely approximates something like _“IMACOOOOOOOOOY ER EFEREGE GERICDE.”_ Dean, passed out on his bed, makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a sob, and buries his head under his pillow. Someone will make it stop. The world is a kind place.

“ _IMACOOOOOOOYOR STELLRSEIRDE!”_

“No nononono,” Dean whispers into the linens. “Stopplease soloud.”

“ _ONER STEEORFE IRIIIIIIYYE!”_

This time he full-out mewls like a kitten, throws his pillow as far away as he can, and finally pushes himself up to sit on the edge of his bed. He squints around his room.

“— _boy, on a steel horse I ride...I'm wanted dead or alive,”_ the sound finally registers itself properly: a ringtone. Dean winces and wonders if Bon Jovi ever had to deal with such horrible headaches. And why did he think it was a good idea to play a repetitive impromptu concert inside Dean Winchester's bedroom on this awful, loud morning?

“ _I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride...I'm wanted dead or alive.”_

His cell phone. It's somewhere in this room and it's suffering from a crippling condition known as 'still being in one piece.'

“Donworryhoney I'll fixit,” Dean mumbles to himself, staggering to his feet. He finds the offending piece of electronics in the pocket of his jacket, on the floor. He cuts off Jovi's 138 th  encore and answers, “Hello?”

“Dean.” Castiel's voice sounds like gravel sent through a kitchen disposal—the perfect match to the state of Dean's brain.

“Cas.”

“Are you alive?”

Dean sighs in exasperation and then whimpers when the exertion produces a wave of nausea. “I think so.”

“I've never been so hungover,” Castiel's voice has a hint of a sob at the end.

“Me neither,” Dean commiserates. Suddenly he hears a clatter in the kitchen—a possible intruder. A ninja, a robber, a whackjob on meth. At any other time Dean Winchester would have leapt to his feet ready for a fight, but today the mere thought sends a wave of vertigo through his body and renders him helpless, sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the door. _Let them come,_ he thinks. _Put me out of my misery quickly. You can't be nauseous if you're dead._

Muffled sounds from the phone in his hand. _Oh, right, Castiel_. Dean puts his phone to his ear again. “Sorry, Cas. Meth ninjas have broken into my house and I'm pretty sure they're here to kill me, but it's okay. How did you get home, anyway?”

“I didn't. I think I'm in your basement. I fell asleep on a couch and now the door...the door is stuck,” Cas says.

“Shit. Yeah, it sticks sometimes.”

“I can't get out. I—hey!” More unintelligible sounds—bangs, faint whooshes, maybe a yelp. Dean sighs and says a silent prayer for Castiel Novak, tequila ballet hippo: briefly known, fairly well-liked, wearer of trench coats, murdered by ninjas.

He's trying to remember whether the Lord's Prayer includes mention of the ten plagues when someone knocks on his door with frightening energy. Resigned, Dean grunts, lumbers over, turns the knob, ready to face his oppressors—

—Only to find Sam—a disgustingly cheerful and wide-awake Sam—with a spatula in hand and the smuggest look imaginable. “Good morning, sunshine,” he says with a smirk, pushing the door open completely. Castiel is standing behind Sam, still in his clothes from last night, clutching a cup of coffee in both hands as if it contained his soul. A wonderful smell wafts in from the kitchen.

Dean opens his mouth to ask what the hell Sam's doing in his house but his little brother is quick on the draw.

“You called me,” he says, hustling Dean down the hall and into the kitchen, with Cas following like a well-trained puppy. “At about four in the morning. You told me you loved me. It was weird.” Sam's gigantic hands firmly plant Dean into a chair at the kitchen table and put a cup of coffee in front of him, which is when Dean finally gets his bearings.

“I...called you? What? Why?”

Sam shrugs, turning to the stove to load eggs, bacon, and toast onto various plates. “Beats me, dude. You put me on speakerphone and then you and Cas, here—” his eyes flick towards Castiel, who isn't so much drinking as chugging his coffee like a frat boy—“serenaded me with, I believe it was, oh yes, _Faithfully._ ” Each time he turns to put food on the table, Sam's grin gets more and more wicked.

Dean buries his face in his hands. “We sang Journey?”

“Jess totally appreciated it, by the way. By which I mean she was pissed.”

Castiel helps himself to some scrambled eggs and a piece of toast. “Sorry,” he mumbles, pouring more coffee.

Sam's gaze fixates squarely on Dean. “Why did you get so drunk, anyhow?”

Dean suddenly remembers the nurse, and a wave of sadness and nausea rolls over him. “No reason,” he mumbles, as things start to come back to him in flashes.

_Marcy is her name. Marcy Adamson. She has a head full of tight brown curls and the most delicate nose Dean has ever seen, tiny and narrow but perfect for her face._

_Marcy looking weird without her pale lilac scrubs, sitting next to a woman with blonde hair tied in a low ponytail. Marcy's face falling in an instant from happiness to the deepest mourning when she catches sight of Dean and registers who he is._

“ _...Jesus.”_

_He forces a smile. “Nope. Just me.”_

“ _Dean. Holy shit. Um. How are you?”_

_He shrugs. “Oh, I'm good. Doing just fine. You?”_

_Marcy steals a glance at her dining companion. “I'm well. I, uh. Andrea, this is Dean. He was a patient of mine a few years ago. Dean, this is my wife Andrea.”_

_Andrea shakes Dean's hand, very specifically without saying a word, and her eyes stare daggers:_ don't mess with my girl, motherfucker, or so help me.

_There's a moment, then, when Dean and Marcy can't figure out what to say, because they're both remembering the very worst moments of their last meetings, and finally Dean can't take it anymore. His last remnants of bravado are eradicated by crushing awkwardness._

“ _So, um, I shouldn't keep you, but I figured I'd say hi, and...well, thanks for everything, I guess. I didn't really say it back then. I really did appreciate everything you did for us.”_

_Tears are welling in Marcy's eyes as she nods. “No problem,” she replies. “It's my job.”_

_There are a million things that go unsaid in the next moment. Things like_ “You killed my father, you bitch.” _Like:_ “How could you screw up so fucking badly?” _Like:_ “Why? Why him? Why why why why did I live and he die?” _Things also like_ “I'm sorry I'm sorry good god I am so sorry.”

_Though none of them pass through any lips, they're pretty crystal clear, and these unsaid exchanges hang in the air between them like heavy spiderwebs until Dean reaches out his hand for a shake and murmurs a polite, restrained goodbye._

“Dean. DEAN. YO.” Sam's fingers snap in front of Dean's eyes, bringing him out of his reverie.

“Sorry. What?”

“Your guest is leaving.”

On cue, Castiel appears back in the kitchen, carrying his trench coat over one arm and looking just slightly less horrid. He nods to Sam, and then turns to Dean.

“Listen, Dean, I—”

Dean shakes his head. “Don't worry about it, Cas. It was nice to meet you. Have a nice life.” He absently waves in the direction of the front hallway, and Castiel meekly slips through and then he's gone, a chapter of life closed. _It's a shame, I kinda liked the little guy. Less stuck up than he lets on_ , Dean thinks.

But the front door never opens. Instead, Dean hears a quavering voice call, “Uh, Dean?”

He exchanges a confused look with Sam as he shuffles down the hall. “What's up, Cas?”

Castiel is standing by the front hall table, with a business card in his hand—the one from on top of the manilla envelope. “Why do you have my card?”

Dean almost drops his coffee. “I'm sorry, what?”

“This is me. I'm C. James Novak. I restore documents for a living.”

Dean's brain is about two steps behind the conversation, but he forces himself to comprehend. “I...” his gaze floats to the pile of papers. “Well, I guess I have a job for you.”

Castiel follows Dean's gaze and picks up the manilla folder with careful fingers. He puts the card back in its place. “Give me a call tomorrow. We'll work something out.”

And then he leaves, taking the remnants of Dean's father's ghost with him. Just like that. _What the fuck just happened?_ Dean wonders silently, returning to the kitchen and collapsing back at the table. Sam turns around from the sink, and Dean sees his little brother's eyes darken.

“Wait. You weren't drinking because it's the eighteenth today, were you?” Sam asks.

“...what the hell are you talking about?”

The darkness flares for a second, and then Sam's face softens. “Never mind. Here, have some more coffee.” He pours Dean another cup, which Dean cradles close to his chest.

“Sweet, sweet caffeinated lifeblood, how I adore thee,” he opines, taking a sip even though it's still far too hot.

“Coffee dehydrates you even more. You do know that, right?”

“Please shut up, Sam.”

“Whatever. Honestly, you deserve whatever you get, drinking like that on a weekday.”

 _Oh, balls, it's Thursday_ , Dean remembers. Bobby is going to be furious. But there's something else bothering him: “...don't you have a big test today?”

Sam's right eyebrow shoots up. “What are you, my mother?”

“You told me about it like six weeks ago. Wouldn't shut up about how important it was.”

A shrug. “Don't worry about it.”

“Did it get canceled or something?”

“I said don't worry about it, Dean,” Sam replies, with more force this time.

The brothers stare at one another for a few moments.

“Well, I should be on my way too. Don't get in any more shenanigans.” Sam claps Dean on the shoulders as he heads for the door.

And then Dean's alone in the kitchen, reeling, with a pounding headache far more questions than his brain can currently try to answer. Something about Sam's question—the eighteenth?—won't unstick from his mind. He reaches for his phone, slides it on, sees the date, and feels nauseous all over again:

Today would have been their father's 60 th  birthday.

.

**(Twelve Hours Ago)**

Castiel Novak lives in a world of actions and reactions. Forces and oppositions.

He takes a seat at the bar of the Wet Lion and tries to figure out how to look as inconspicuous as possible. What do people normally do when they want to drink their worries away?

What if your worries are burned into your skin like a brand?

He checks his watch. Six hours until Anna's train comes in.

As he hesitantly orders a shot of tequila, Castiel feels the gears in his head spinning, calculating out the world as he knows it.

Here's the rundown of his life, facts whirring past like a printing calculator. Castiel is the youngest child of a gigantic family, spanning two consecutive wives over roughly fifty-five years. His oldest half-brothers and -sisters were having children of their own by the time he was born, and most are strangers to him. They are distant voices at the other end of the dinner table at Christmastime, smiling faces in aging photographs, and pillars of success in their respective careers, but not family members. They are lawyers, board chairmen, corporate executives, and political strategists. Patrons of the arts but not actual artists. They know exactly what they're doing and they always ensure that it reflects well on their surname.

All of them, except for Castiel and Anna—the last survivors of a burned-out revolution.

Cas and Anna grew up together. She is three years older than him, the daughter of his uncle Raphael, and during their childhoods she fit perfectly between the mousy Castiel and his elder twin brothers. When Cas thinks of Anna, he remembers her at fifteen, sitting in Luke and Michael's living room, rolling a joint at the coffee table and fending off Luke's manic attempts to micromanage the weed. Anna had been warned to stay away from Luke—and, by extension, from Michael—so she hung out with them every chance she got, skipping math class to smoke clove cigarettes and watch French New Wave films with them, or argue semiotics over coffee. Occasionally Cas would tag along and sit in the corner with his nose buried in a book, secretly thrilled to be in such close proximity to his siblings. When the twins died, Castiel and Anna found themselves allies against the hushed stuffiness of the Novak anti-mourning; they've been inseparable ever since.

Michael and Luke.

With a grimace, Castiel takes another sip.

Anna's sworn for years that something wasn't right about the fire. There was a point when Castiel believed it too, he's pretty sure, but he can no longer truly remember. Years of complicated mind games have resulted in an extreme compartmentalization of one of the more traumatizing events of his life. Where Anna refused to stop asking questions, Castiel quickly learned that there would never be any answers. Naomi's eldest sons—the pride of Abraham's later life—were gone. There was no funeral, only a brief ceremony at the family crypt. There was no mourning period. Abraham was back at work two days later, his mouth set in a firm, thin line, and that was that.

It made no goddamn sense.

The mathematics of Castiel's life are anything but simple, but he's made a habit of balancing things on either side of the equals sign, trying as subtly as possible to become a different sort of man than his father has been.

Equation One, for instance: the Novak family home was a gigantic, ultramodern house in one of Boston's most exclusive neighborhoods. White, silver, beige, black, sleek forms and sharp corners. Castiel and Anna's condo, in contrast, is an old mansion hacked up into suites—all hardwood floors, decorative wainscoting, and burgundy patterned wallpaper.

Equation Two: Naomi, his mother, hates cats. She hates all animals which leave unsightly hairs on upholstery. So Cas and Anna have a pudgy tabby named Hero and a determinedly casual attitude towards lint rollers.

Equation Three: Castiel's father, Abraham, made a name for himself being a business mogul and heir to a huge fortune—hedge funds, international trade, hostile takeovers. The Novaks swam in very old money and rubbed shoulders with the like-minded elite. So Castiel has become a document restorer, essentially a librarian, taking a job that will never pay very well but is extraordinarily meaningful to him.

Quiet rebellions.

With a sigh, Cas sips again. The tequila is bitter and the fumes threaten to overcome him, but he soldiers on.

Despite their shared black-sheep tendencies, it was Anna, and not Castiel, who received an invitation to the large family reunion taking place this year; she's been in Boston for eight weeks now, visiting with friends and family and wrapping up a few loose ends. He hopes.

When he dropped Anna off at the airport, Castiel exchanged a significant, long, silent look with her—an unspoken request to do what he couldn't. _Find out about my brothers_. He has no idea if she understood; either way, she's back tonight. The answers she may hold—or, worse, not hold—have haunted him for days.

Castiel tries desperately to force the rest of the tequila down his throat, but he can't stand the taste. He's just about to leave when a guy with bright green eyes, a short-cropped haircut and a leather jacket swoops onto the next bar stool, flashes him the most dazzling grin he's ever seen, and tells Castiel he's drinking incorrectly.

The rest you know.

.

Sam arrives home to find that Jess has already gone to class. That's well and good for her, and fucking brilliant for him, because the last thing he wants right now is another conversation. Sam loves Jess, but sometimes he is overcome with envy at Dean's house; there are so many rooms in which one can live gloriously, quietly alone. It's not the same when you're in a 1-bedroom apartment with someone. Sometimes it drives him insane, having to deal with another person constantly vying for attention. When he and Dean were roommates, they could easily ignore each other for hours and never get offended; Jess, on the other hand, wants to be involved in almost _everything_.

Sam looks at his watch—it's just barely past 11 in the morning—goes to the fridge, pulls out a beer, and slumps into a kitchen chair. He lets his eyes unfocus, staring ahead at nothing in particular, and drinks mechanically. When he finishes the first beer, he pulls out another, and then sets the whole six pack on the table beside him.

As he drinks, the memory of Dean's last question— _Don't you have a big test today?_ —rings in his mind. Sam lied casually, but not skillfully; he knows that Dean is going to suspect something is up, even if just for a few hours. The truth is, his Federal Rules of Evidence exam started half an hour ago; it's worth 55% of his grade, and he hasn't called in sick, and doesn't plan to.

Sam rests his chin in his hand, lets the late morning sun warm his eyelids, and considers his new worldview, established early this morning with his brother's phone call.

No. Established isn't the right word. The groundwork has been building for months now; today was just the catalyst, the ripcord yanked away, the ribbon cut on a new thing he's going to call Not Giving a Single Fuck.

.

The thing is, Dean didn't wake him up. He was already awake, consumed with rage, staring at the ceiling and internally rolling with each wave of anger as it crashed against his ribs. Sam could feel himself quietly trembling as he lay there, shaking with the effort to remain still. He knew that if he gave himself permission to move, he would smash the first thing his fingers contacted, and then the next thing, and then the next. He had it mapped out in his mind: lamp, alarm clock, phone, side table. Then move to the dresser and hurl Jess's delicate glass figurines at the mirror, one by one, and watch them explode into millions of bright shards.

The urge is so strong it's nearly overwhelming; the cathartic release he craves is almost orgasmic in nature. An itch he can't scratch. A buildup desperately yearning for release.

When the phone buzzed on the table next to his ear, Sam was too tense to jump or be startled; in fact, he barely moved. He finally managed to unclench his hand, and answered the phone with a grunt.

“SAMMMMMMMY!” came the shriek in response, so loud that Jess snapped awake with a cry and Sam winced at the noise blast in his ear.

“What. Do you want. Dean.”

“You. Yurrr the BEST brothrrer. Brother. Uh. Me 'n Cas had some drinks.”

The distraction allowed Sam to relax enough to sit up in bed. “You and who?”

A new voice on the other end of the line—male and husky. “Me. I'm Cas. Castiel. Like Castle but _better,_ ” he said, before dissolving into giggles. Sam could tell he was on speakerphone. _Great_.

“Sam?” Jess mumbled, still half asleep. “Wha's going on?”

He was just about to answer when—“ _Cirrrrrcus life, under the big top world...we all need the clowns to make us smile...”_

“Oh, Christ, Dean...”

Then both voices were singing, slurred and brutally off-key and sloppily happy. “ _And being apart ain't easy on this love affair...two strangers learn to faaaaalll in love again...I get the joy of rediscovvvrn you. OOOOOOHHHHH GIRL—”_

“Dean, what do you WANT?” Sam snarled. The laughter on the other end of the line made him want to throw the phone out of the window as hard as he could.

“Sammy,” Dean finally said. “Come over, dude. We have....we had whiskey. Maybe bring some whiskey. You're awesome. Cas is awesome. I'm fucking outstanding. _Together we can fight crime_.”

In the background, Dean's new friend: “ _WOOOH oh WOOOOHHHHHHH oh oh WHOOAH! I'M STILL YOOOURS..._ ” Sam could hear him vocally mimicking the guitar solo until it dribbled off into drunken glossolalia.

“Sam. I'm serious. Come over,” Dean asked, suddenly serious and sounding _almost_ sober.

Sam took a deep breath, preparing a stern lecture on calling him the night before a big test, but then...something snapped. The anger that had been compacting his body into solid stone suddenly dropped away, leaving him feeling entirely—and pleasantly—empty.

It was in that moment that Sam realized: he just didn't give a fuck. Not about school, not about waking up Jess, not about Jess herself. Not about Dean's emotional neediness when drunk. Not about the cracks in his collarbone that reminded him of the worst night of his life. He didn't care about his house or his health or his future.

The feeling of freedom was so sudden that it left Sam breathless. He felt his shoulders relax for the first time in months. He methodically got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and left the bedroom, grabbing his keys from the dresser. At some point Jess said something to him—a lot of things, maybe—but Sam never acknowledged that he heard her.

.

Now, sitting at his kitchen table with a six-pack and all the time in the world, Sam reaches for that pleasant numb feeling and is pleased that it's still there—insofar as he can feel anything. He likes this new policy of not giving a single fuck; it's so incredibly freeing that he genuinely doesn't understand why he's never thought of it before. He's spent so much of his life worrying—about his future, about his family, about what sort of man he'd become. Trying to connect with and please his father, while also dreaming of a life free from the man's many eccentricities. Growing up having lost his mother at six months of age, attempting to fit into the dynamic of John and Dean's grief over her death. Sam Winchester has spent what seems like every waking moment focused on all these arbitrary pressures, letting them define him, and to let it all go is akin to being reborn.

As Sam puts the remains of the six pack back in the fridge, he notices that Jess has taped a note to the freezer: _Please call me. What happened this morning? Did you make it to your exam? Love you, hon._

Questions and obligations. Needs and requirements. Jess, and the rest of the world, just always wanting to _know_ all these things. Fuck 'em.

Sam knows what to do.

 


	4. Transparent Hands Were At My Neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Please, PLEASE look up the Windowlicker cover. It's by Maxence Cyrin and can easily be found on the Tubes of You if you search. It's well worth it and is one of the most frequently played pieces on my writing playlist. Absolutely gorgeous.

"This isn't violence, this is just a war in my head,  
I give it time but it never seems to end.  
I feel a fire in the back of my throat,  
So let's get covered in flames and play some games with the smoke." - Pvris

.

When Castiel arrives home, Anna's car is in the driveway. All thoughts of a nap—and there have been many, during this drive home—immediately flee Cas' head, and his heart begins to flutter with anxiety and anticipation.

As he turns his key in the lock, he hears little thudding sounds and meows, and when he opens the door he's nearly tripped up by fifteen pounds of pudgy feline. Hero walks in between Castiel's legs, purring loudly. "Glad to see you too, cat," Cas murmurs, bending down to give her a scratch. When he looks up again, Anna is standing at the foot of the stairs.

"Well hello there," she says, folding her arms across her chest. "Nice of you to finally drop by."

"Anna. I—"

She holds up a finger, cutting Cas off, and her eyes are twinkling in a dangerous way. "Nope, don't bother. You told me last night." She pulls her phone from her back pocket and dials her voicemail, and Castiel feels smaller with every passing second. He draws closer to hear the speakerphone.

"ANNA. Anna. Hey. Hi."

_Oh no._

"Surrry I'm not there to say hi and welcome you back and say hi," drunk Castiel slurs on the voicemail. "I'm, uh, I met a new friend. I'm at his place. We've had whis..whi...we're drunk. I think I'm drunk. I think I got drunk because I don' want to know but I also want to know, y'know?"

Castiel can feel the blood draining from his face. "Anna—" he begins, but she shushes him and points back to the phone.

Drunk Cas, in a murmur: "I told Dean about...about them. I hope that's okay."

From the background: "Who're you talking to, loverboy? Girlfriend?"

A belligerent reply: "NO, Dean, she's my _cousin_."

"The felon?" Then, a few muffled sounds later: "Heeeyyyyyyyyy, person. Cas's cool. I'm cool too. Are you cool? Because—" and then the voicemail cuts off with a beep.

Castiel sways in place as Anna dissolves into peals of laughter. "So," she says, shooting him the tallest possible raised eyebrow. "New friend Dean, eh?"

Castiel sits down on the stairs and Anna joins him. "Not really. Very much a mistake."

"...a fun mistake?"

Cas glares daggers at her—as best he can. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

God, that smirk is obnoxious. "Well, fine then. Hope you had fun anyway."

"We talked, I guess. I don't really remember. I think I told him about Michael and Luke, and I think he was in a car wreck a few years ago."

Anna's jaw drops a little. "Jesus, Castiel, aren't you a ray of goddamn sunshine."

"I guess not," he sighs.

"And what are you holding?"

He's almost totally forgotten about the manilla envelope in his hand. "Oh. Dean gave them to me. Turns out someone gave him my card to get these restored anyhow." Cas gets up and places the envelope on the hallway table, then returns to the stairs. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here to greet you."

Her eyes twinkle. "It's fine. You may just want to just keep a mind to your physical limits next time you hang out with this...Dean."

Cas sighs. "I doubt that will happen."

"Why not?" Anna asks, picking up Hero and settling the cat on her lap.

"...because I ended up passed out on his basement futon after venturing down there to check for ghosts? You heard me just now."

She scoffs. "Please. You just made a memorable and bold first impression for the first time in your life. It's fine. In fact, I think you could use more guy friends in this city. You should get to know Dean a little better."

Castiel swallows. "I don't think it's a good idea."

Anna turns to look him square in the eye. "Here's the deal," she says. "If you hide back in your books again instead of following up with Dean, then I won't tell you about what I learned while I was in Boston."

"Are you fucking _serious—_ "

"—and it's good. It's really good," Anna continues, "so go forth and make some plans, kiddo."

Silently fuming, Castiel stalks up to his bedroom to change. As he drapes his slacks on their proper hanger, a torn piece of paper flutters to the floor—half of a business card advertising a sober ride-home service from the Lion. Dean's name and number are scrawled on the spaces in between, with the cramped note: _Don't have Facebook. Call whenever._

With a heavy sigh, Cas puts the card on his bedside table and collapses into bed, burying his face in his pillows. _How badly do I want the answers Anna holds?_ he wonders. _Enough to have coffee with Dean? To figure out the conversational avenues by which people become friends?_ He can't remember the last time he had to try to make a friend. It seems so artificial. _Can't I just work on his papers like he's any other clients with old tax forms? They're always old tax forms._

But as he weighs the various parts of this new equation, in the back of his mind there are factors being left unsaid, and variables affecting the outcome. In the part of his mind that he never shows to people, Cas is fully aware that all his little questions—all his should-I-stay-or-should-I-go's, his will-he-or-won't-he's—are just so much posturing to an empty audience. He already knows what the answer is going to be.

.

Anna is playing a classical cover of an Aphex Twin song called Windowlicker, but in her mind and in her nostrils she is consumed by fire.

She imagines fire licking its way up the legs of her beloved baby grand piano. As her fingers flit across the keys she can almost hear the strings snapping as the heat relieves them of their tension.

Anna has played Windowlicker countless times before; it's quickly become a staple in her repertoire and a personal favourite. It's dark and ominous and deeply sad, but also calming; she can play it and let her mind wander. Today her thoughts are with Michael and Luke.

Would the piano strings melt in a fire? The upper octave ones probably could.

The last thing she said to Luke—what was it? Anna has long since stopped being horrified that she can't remember, but the question itself will never go away. The rest of that day is crystal clear in her mind—it always will be. At the periphery of her vision, no matter where she is, Anna can almost always see flames.

_She was at home, practicing the piano, when she heard the sirens rush by her window. They seemed to go on for a very long time. And she knew, just as certainly as she knew her own name. She rushed outside to see the sirens turning towards Michael and Luke's home, but she didn't need to see their exact destination; plumes of smoke were already rising in the distance._

_That apartment was so beautiful, so full of books and antique furniture and life, and then it all burned._

Anna intensifies her playing, hammering the lower chords for emphasis. Every time her fingers hit a key, she feels as if the ivory will disintegrate into soot and fall away from her hand. _(I can see him.)_

_She ran the six blocks like they were nothing, sobbing harder than she imagined was possible. But when she hit their street, saw the firemen pumping water into the blackened husk of the apartment, she stopped. Her entire mind went blank, and she felt as if the ground had given away beneath her and her personality had dropped out of her body—down the hole, gone. Anna stood and watched the scene along with the rest of the neighbourhood, seeing herself as if from a distance._

She begins Windowlicker over again, transitioning almost seamlessly into another round of it, unable to stop playing as she thinks and remembers and immerses herself in those awful moments.

_Naomi and Abraham had thought to protect Castiel, turning his face away when the EMTs wheeled one of the twins out of the wreckage—he was still alive, though barely, and would die en route to the hospital._

_But they didn't think of Anna, and so Anna saw. She saw the gasping, blackened head of either Michael or Luke—they were never able to tell which. The nose was gone; the mouth was a featureless hole. No ears, no eyebrows. One eye socket empty, but one full and clear and able to see. He looked right at her and he saw her and his agonized gasping seemed to quicken a little._

Anna's hand slips off and she plays two wrong notes, bringing Windowlicker to a crashing halt. She slowly lowers the lid over the keys.

( _I can see him._ )

The Novaks cremated the remains and put them into the family crypt, and nothing was ever said of it again. Anna, then sixteen, outright asked to go to counselling to deal with the deaths of her beloved cousins; she was met with flat dismissals, changed subjects, or horrible screaming matches. So she sat on those memories and they eventually became a part of her.

_Small gathering at the funeral. Castiel, reaching out to hold her hand, even though they were both too old for it. His lip quivering, barely able to hold back his tears._

From that moment on, Anna's memories were tainted. Anytime she thinks of Michael and Luke, their faces are blackened and burned beyond recognition. No matter how many photos she hangs on the walls, or how much meditation and therapy she does or drugs she takes, in Anna's mind they are always gasping from lipless maws.

Anna puts her head down between her arms, pressing her forehead to the piano's cool wood, and lets the tears come. At least she can cry about it now.

( _I can see him_ )

She'll never know which of them looked at her, which of the twins lived for just a few more minutes. She'll never remember the last thing she ever said to her best friends on earth, but she will always remember this.

( _I can see him_ )

( _I wish I couldn't_ )

This is what happens when Anna thinks of fire.

.

**(One Week Later)**

Dean hesitates for two seconds at the front door of the old house, feeling very underdressed. He feels like he shouldn't be in his work shoes. He feels like he should have taken a shower instead of coming here directly from work. But Castiel insisted that this was just a casual visit, a consultation on the papers, so now Dean is here and feeling grimy. He knocks.

A redhead with gorgeously pale skin answers the door. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm here to see Castiel? My name is Dean."

The redhead's right eyebrow shoots up for a split second, and she looks Dean up and down with a smirk he can't quite read. "Ah. You're Dean. Well, come on in; Cas is in his office. I'm Anna."

"Ah. So you're Anna." They have a moment, each examining the other, reconciling preconceived notions with the current reality.

Dean's boots leave little specks of dirt and snow when he takes them off, and his socks nearly slip on the highly polished dark wood floors as he follows Anna down the hall. The house is gorgeously old—he's never seen places like this outside of _Downton Abbey—_ and the walls are full of photographs of what must be Castiel and Anna along with two older teenage boys, whose dark hair and intense eyes match almost perfectly. _Must be his dead brothers. God, Anna was cute as a teenager._

As they pass one room, a baby grand piano catches Dean's eye. "Wow," he comments. "That's nice."

Anna beams. "That's my girl. She's from 1912."

"Hah. My baby is my car," Dean replies, puffing out his chest. "1967 Impala. She's parked outside if you wanna look later." And with his most charming wink, Dean knows he's got her on the hook. _Well, this is a nice surprise. And she's not a felon! Score, Dean-o._ "So do you play?"

"Mhm. Professionally, actually. You should come to one of my performances sometime."

Dean chuckles. "That black tie fancy stuff is more my brother's type of party. I'm a rock and roll kind of guy—I'd stick out like a sore thumb."

Anna turns to face him, and Dean suddenly realizes how very narrow the hallway is and how very close she is. "Nonsense," she scoffs. "Classical music was the first form of rock and roll. Liszt had such devoted fans that they would go hysterical at his performances and faint, just like girls at Beatles concerts. Hell, Stravinsky caused a riot because of a bassoon once."

Dean really isn't sure what to say to that. "Bassoon?"

"Yep," Anna continues as she ushers him down the hall. "So you should absolutely come to my next performance—you and your brother. Just let Cas know how many tickets I'll need to set aside."

"Uh, sure." _You can wear a tie to impress a pretty girl, Dean._

Anna guides him to an office that is stuffed with papers and books, where Castiel has wedged himself behind a desk that's barely visible beneath the stacks. "Come in," Cas indicates a chair, and Dean eases himself into it; his legs just barely miss knocking over a pile of loose papers. He feels like Alice, grown too large for the space around him. From elsewhere in the house, Dean can hear Anna start to play the piano, and Castiel smiles at the sound. "Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's third symphony. Anna's in a good mood."

Dean smiles back despite himself, and then remembers his manners. "Thanks for inviting me over."

Castiel nods. "It's no problem; thank you for meeting me at my home office. I'll be taking your file over to the library later today, but I figured I'd speak to you about the process and contents of the documents before anything becomes legible."

Dean raises an eyebrow skeptically. "You can clean up burned papers? So that they're readable again?"

Cas nods. "Sometimes, yes. I have a clean room at the library, and the materials to clean up the smoke damage. It'll involve re-balancing the pH level of the paper, and using special vacuums to lift the soot particles; there's no guarantee, of course, but there's a decently good chance that I'll be able to recover at least some of your papers."

"My dad's." Dean shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"Pardon?"

He clears his throat. "Not my papers. They belong—belonged—to my father. I don't actually know what's on them."

Castiel looks at Dean for a moment, before he draws a breath and says: "Well. About that."

"About what?"

Cas swallows. "Dean, when documents are partially illegible like this, and you don't know what's on them—well, sometimes these things can contain writings of a rather...personal nature. When things have deteriorated to the point of needing professional restoration, and it isn't due to an accident, sometimes it's because the owner wanted them to fade from existence. So I want to warn you about this now, and ask if you still wish to proceed. You may not like what you find here." Castiel taps the file with a gentle index finger.

Dean sighs. "Maybe we shouldn't, then. I don't know if I can afford it, anyway. I'm sure these sorts of things don't come cheap."

"Actually, I am willing to make you a deal on this one," Castiel sits back in his chair. "I have something that could use your unique talents. I propose a trade."

The little guy is super weird, but this is intriguing. "Oh?"

"Come with me."

.

"You're fucking _kidding_."

"...No, I'm not?"

Dean knows he's gawping, but he can't help it. Castiel's garage is holding a treasure—the Holy goddamn Grail, for a mechanic whose love of old cars borders on the erotic.

"You want me. To touch this."

Castiel looks a little bit frightened. "Yes?"

Dean takes a cautious few steps forward, his fingers itching, and when he lays his hand on the dark green metal he feels a jolt of pure thrill surge through him. "Hello, beautiful," he murmurs, letting his fingers explore. "What are you doing all cooped up in here?"

It's a 1932 Morgan, one of the original race cars—beyond a classic, it's a piece of art. It's the Mona Lisa. It's the Sistine Chapel. This is the _supreme_ example of old gorgeous car. Baby may be rock and roll, but this Morgan is—well, Dean supposes, it's classical music. The earlier, more refined version of his beloved.

"Where did you find this, Cas?"

"eBay."

Dean turns. "I say again: you're fucking _kidding._ "

Castiel comes to stand beside Dean. "I can show you the purchase records. I own it legally."

"Oh, no, I don't care about that," Dean says, realizing how intimidated Cas sounds. "I mean, who would sell such a beauty on freakin' eBay?"

"A former real estate agent in bankruptcy, I'm afraid. It was inside a storage unit—hence the damage. If you're interested—"

"—oh, I am _very_ interested, Cas."

"—well, then, I need it restored. It's a gift for my father's birthday, in May. Do you think you could do it?"

"Absolutely." It's not really a matter of _can_ ; it's a matter of _oh my god I get to bring this gorgeous girl back to her prime._ Dean's almost shaking in anticipation. "It'd be an honour, Cas. These cars are racing royalty." _Let's have some fun, beauty,_ he silently adds in the car's direction.

Castiel holds out his hand. "It's a deal, then?"

This time Dean doesn't fight his smile, and shakes Cas' hand warmly. "Deal."


	5. Reaper Man

“ I wonder, did they make me right?

Aren't I supposed to wanna fight

For love? And life? Everything that people say is right?

Am I so wrong to cry only when there's something in my eye?

Am I to die alone and sublime?” - Mother Mother

 

Anna Novak and Sam Winchester sit across from one another in a booth, drinking classy custom-made cocktails. Anna drains her martini and pulls out a small mirror, reapplying her red lipstick and very pointedly making eye contact every so often.

Sam sighs. “What?”

The lipstick tube's cover slides shut with a _click_. “So you've quit school, eh?”

He takes a sip; the cocktail is bitter and bizarre. “What of it?”

Anna rolls her eyes. “Come on, Sam. I've known you since freshman year; you've wanted to be a lawyer your whole goddamn life, and now you just  _quit_ ?”

“Don't,” Sam's voice is quiet, low, and dangerous. “Don't lecture me, Anna.”

“Who said anything about lecturing? I'm just curious as to why.”

“No reason.”

She scoffs. “Bullshit.” But when Sam's poker face holds, she shrugs. “Okay, fine, I won't ask. But bubbeleh, I worry. You worry Mama Anna with your  _mischegas_ .”

Sam smiles despite himself. “You meddle entirely too much.”

Anna beams. “It's my specialty. Piano is just the moneymaker,” she replies, signalling the waiter for another drink. “And your brother and my cousin getting themselves tied up together is just the icing on the meddling cake, let me tell you.”

Sam's brow knits. “Yeah, that is  _weird_ . Hell of a coincidence, don't you think?”

“Who knows? There are some who don't believe in coincidence.”

He drifts off into thought while he finishes his drink. While he hung out with Anna during undergrad, he'd never met Castiel—until now. Making a man brunch will really speed up the introduction process.

Time to change the subject. “So how was Boston?”

Now it's Anna's turn to sigh. “Oh, you know. My uncle Abraham is still as evil as ever. My father showed me off at the reunion like I was his prize racehorse. The usual Novak stupidity,” she absentmindedly stirs the ice in her empty glass with her straw. “I don't understand why they keep insisting that I have anything but contempt for the whole lot of them. Lord knows I've done enough to rebel.”

“Anna, you're a classical pianist. That's, like, the opposite of rebellion.”

“It's a rebellion for me! People in my family go into business. They just generally own the fuck out of New England. Being an artist on the Left Coast is the Novak equivalent of marrying too young and getting a tattoo,” Anna explains, and winks. “Though I did those, too.”

“So it was miserable, huh?” Despite himself, Sam is enjoying the conversation. Not Giving a Fuck can involve having fun sometimes—in fact, that's kind of the point.

“Yes, though not entirely fruitless,” Anna says. “I came out of it with some _very_ useful information.”

“Oh?”

Her eyes sparkle mischievously. “That's for me to know and Castiel to find out.”

“Fair enough.”

They fall silent for a few minutes; the waiter arrives with fresh drinks. Then, Anna puts down her glass with a  _clink_ and sighs so sadly. “Sam.”

“Anna.”

She's a million miles away, looking past Sam into very painful memories. “Why do you think bad things happen to good people?”

His mouth sets itself in a firm line. “Sometimes there just aren't answers.”

And then, just like that, he's lost in the past too.

 

**(Then: Eighteen years ago)**

Sam is eight years old, and alone with his father for the first time in months.

It's awkward.

Dean is staying late at school today, trying out for the wrestling team. He knows it's a farce—there's no way they'll stay in this town long enough for him to actually go to a meet—but he wants to do it because he's Dean, cocksure and fearless, and never one to miss a chance to show off his ability to beat the shit out of stuff. He told John he got detention and swore Sam to secrecy.

So now it's just Sam and John in the motel, sitting on the couch and watching the last third of an episode of  _ Law and Order  _ instead of talking, because John is a man of very few words and even fewer fatherly reassurances. Sam is supposed to be reading a comic book, but it lies limp in his hands and he's engrossed in the show—as much of it as he understands. John has explained who the bad guys and the good guys are, and the basics of a criminal trial.

Sam is utterly fascinated. He's never seen lawyers before, not really. Their suits are so sharp and their teeth are impossibly white; they seem like actual, real-deal superheroes. Sam watches as the prosecutors fight to put the arsonist behind bars, and the defence rebuts and proclaims the man's innocence. When the camera pans across the jury's passively bored faces, Sam's heart tightens in his chest and he wants to cry out. When the murderer takes the stand and is interrogated by the lawyers, Sam's hands clench against the comic's laminated pages. And when the judge goes to read the verdict, he realizes he's been holding his breath.

The arsonist is found not guilty. Onscreen, a woman bawls into the arms of a man who might be her husband. The camera pans across the crestfallen and dismayed lawyers who, just minutes before, seemed unstoppable. Sam, anxious to know how his newfound heroes will solve this situation, waits for the next scene to begin.

But it never does. The end credits scroll, white letters on black.

Sam feels like throwing up. He has a horrible lump in his throat, and feels tears sting the corners of his eyes. His heart is fluttering in his chest.

“Hey, Sammy, look. _Cheers_ is on next. Your mom loved this show,” John sighs, slinging an arm across the couch and slightly over his son's shoulders. Sam takes a breath, then a second, and then suddenly—

“Why did he get away with it?”

John looks over at his son. “What did you say, Sam?”

“Why didn't that man go to jail? What happened in the show? Why did it end?” Sam can hear a sob bubbling further up his throat with each question he asks. 

John drinks the rest of his beer, sets the bottle down on the coffee table, and rubs his palms together; they make a dry  _ whsshhhhhhh _ sound. “Sammy,” he says gently. “It's just a show, kiddo. It wasn't real.”

“But...but why didn't they catch the bad guy and punish him?”

A sigh. “Sometimes they don't. Otherwise every episode would be the same, and it'd get boring.” John thinks for a few moments, and then hesitantly adds: “And sometimes they don't catch bad guys in real life, either.”

He sits back, apparently content with that pearl of wisdom, but Sam can't stop:

“Why not?”

Another sigh. “It's just the way life is, that's all. Now can we watch  _ Cheers _ or what?”

Sam's clammy hands wring the comic into tatters. “But what if something bad happens to us? Will they let the bad guys just...get away?”

It takes a few seconds for the gravity of the question to settle, but it hits Sam like a tidal wave.  _ What if something bad happens to us? _ He watches his father's hands tighten on the beer bottle in frustration and anger. 

“Bad things have already happened to us,” John says in a near-growl. 

“I...I know,” Sam murmurs meekly. He wants to sink into the floor. “Mom. The fire.” These things have shaped his life; they are specters of a night that's mostly apocryphal in his mind. 

“Yes. Bad things happen to good people, Sam.”

“...but _why?_ ”

It's one  _ why _ too many. John gets up with a huff and takes another beer out of the fridge. “You ask too many questions, you know that?!” he snaps.

Sam's voice catches in his throat and he's afraid to say anything more, for fear of bursting into unstoppable tears. He fights to find the words to ask about all the horrible things he's never fully understood, but all he can do is ball his hands into fists and wish Dean was here.

Then he hears the low sigh, and John says defeatedly: “...sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy.”

Sam looks over to see his father leaning against the open refrigerator, beer already half-finished, head drooping.

_ We've traveled back and forth across the country four times already.  _ Sam has always been told, and believes deep down, that it's because they're on the trail of the man who made the fire happen. But the way John's spoken just now—the sadness and deep depression in his voice—is unacceptable. 

“How? How can there not be answers?”

_ Whumph _ goes the fridge door as it closes. John sits at the table and takes another swig. Sam clambers over the back of the couch to join him, tracing an ancient coffee stain on the linoleum with a finger. 

“You're going to come upon a lot of unanswered questions in your life, Sammy,” John says. There's a tough edge in his voice now. “Life isn't neat and it isn't orderly, and no matter how nicely you fold your socks you can't force it to fall into place like a big puzzle. There will always be bad guys who get away with it. That's life.”

“I don't want to live in a world like that.”

“Sure you do.”

“I don't! I don't want to. What's the point if people just die in fires and the bad guy gets away?”

John's hand tightens into a fist as if to strike the table, but as Sam flinches away he suddenly stops short and relaxes, fingers uncurling. Sam watches his father's face, and sees something that he will not be able to identify until many years later: for a brief, horrible second, he sees John's composure crack. His face contorts into an ugly almost-sob, his mouth stretching like a circus clown into a deeply unsettling grimace and his eyes squeezing shut.

It only lasts for a second. Before Sam can really wonder what's happened, John's face relaxes. He takes a deep breath or two, looks into Sam's eyes and says: “Because when you learn to live with those unanswered questions, Sammy—that's when you've become a man.”

 

So Sam tries to sit with all his questions. From that night onward, he stops asking about his mother, about why they keep moving around all the time, about why they live in motels and sometimes enroll in schools under fake names. He becomes an expert at pretending that everything makes sense, even though that little boy inside him never stops asking why. Every night when he goes to sleep, he feels all the things he doesn't know creep around him like monsters under his bed.

_Sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy._

He can't believe it. There have to be reasons for why things turned out the way they did. As he grows, Sam tries time and again to imagine a world with so many unknowns that he must accept and abide, and each time he does he feels an overwhelming sense of hopelessness reach up and grab him by the throat.

_Sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy._

It seems like such a pointless exercise—the moving, the running, the grifting. Sam keeps secretly waiting for the explanations and they never come—not even in the form of details about how his mother died. Worse, the few scraps of truth he does get just raise more questions.

Things look up when Sam falls in love with school; he takes refuge in learning, where the right answers exist for all sorts of questions. He understands how things work and takes great joy in assembling them in his mind. While he watches Dean bum around in bars and become a master conman, Sam does math problems for fun. School is a little golden seed of logic in the world. It's the only way to keep that horrible black void from swallowing him up and drowning him completely. It gives him the framework to imagine a life where, perhaps, life's natural lack of answers can be balanced by learning how to solve those problems in a pragmatic way.

_Sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy._

Sam parrots the phrase back to Dean as he's packing for university, avoiding eye contact as he throws clothes into duffel bags. The words feel strange coming out of his mouth, like they're a foreign language, but he tries not to think too hard about the hurt in Dean's eyes.

When Dean and John move to town four years later, Sam takes it as a sign of closure on the matter. Chalks one up for the answers side and starts to repair his relationship with Dean. He believes that maybe things do settle down sometimes.

Then one night they're T-boned by a semi.

_Sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy._

Sam lies to John until the man's dying day, leading him to believe that Sam has become the sort of person who can accept that bad things happen, and that there is randomness in the universe that he'll never be able to predict. He becomes so good at living this lie that he convinces everyone around him. But deep down the little boy fights, stubbornly holds onto every single puzzle piece, convinced that he'll find their proper places someday, and that that  _ Law and Order _ episode will have an extra act where everything just turns out to be okay in the end.

_Sometimes there just aren't answers, Sammy._

He never fully forgives his father for those six words.

 


	6. You and I Are a Gang of Losers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Happy new year, readers! Please enjoy this chapter. I'm running into some rearrangements for this story, so updates may slow down just a little while I edit and rework what's coming up next. I don't know why, but I have a tendency to write tons of good scenes and then realize that they're all in the wrong order. Bear with me, drop a review if you'd like, and thanks for reading, as always.

“I hang out with all the Pariahs,  
everyone is almost done with me.  
I hang out with the Pariahs,  
everyone has had their fun with me.  
But the world is really gonna love you,  
I promise you, just like I do.” - The Dears

.

**(Then: Fourteen Years Ago)**

The house is huge, more of a mansion, grown over with ivy and gleaming with bright white window frames. It's a classic example of high-class New England architecture; right now, there are several teenagers scattered on its manicured front lawn, talking to each other and sloshing beer out of red solo cups. Inside it's even more crowded—a high school party in full swing. Pretty girls lean over the pool table and small groups of boys plan their strategies, trying to hear each other over the thud of the music.

Castiel Novak, sixteen, moves through this ocean of adolescence like a piece of driftwood. He is all limbs, gawky and thin, with a sallowness to his cheeks that makes him look perpetually tired. He accepts a cup of beer from the guy manning the keg and takes a sip as he watches his peers socialize. Boys flirt with girls. Girls giggle and whisper behind their hands. Couples dance in the living room, visible in his peripheral vision, a seething mass of bacchanalian lust.

It all seems so effortless.

Every cell of Castiel's body is screaming to go home, curl up with a book, and forget about the whole mess. Every breath seems like it'll carry the phrase “Well, I should be going home,” but the words never make it to his lips. He's determined.

If Anna were here, things would be okay. With Castiel acting as her shadow, the two of them would flit back and forth, engaging in conversations for a while before retreating to a set of stairs to drink and gossip in private. But she's gone to college, and now Cas is alone.

The beer is bitter in his mouth. He spots a group of boys that he recognizes from school—one of them sits next to him in Calculus. Might as well give it a try.

Castiel makes a beeline for the group, even as his heart flutters with anxiety. When he arrives across the room, he realizes with dismay that there's no room to stand; the boys are shoulder-to-shoulder, with no gaps to let in a newcomer. Cas strains to listen for the topic of conversation, to try to figure out a way to politely add himself in, but he can barely hear anything over the music. At some point, one of the boys in the group notices Castiel standing off to the side, awkwardly beside the group; they make eye contact before the boy goes back to the conversation without even a nod.

“I—” the words die on Castiel's lips. _There's no point._ He moves on to a duo of guys sitting on the stairs, talking about football.

“Yeah, that field goal was out of this world,” one says. “Pinbacker's probably gonna get a scholarship.”

“Lucky motherfucker,” the other replies. “Wish I had legs like a dancer's.”

Castiel takes a quick breath. “Actually,” he interjects, “it's been proven that taking dance lessons can improve one's skills on the football field.”

The two jocks stare at Castiel as if he's a talking racoon. “Did you say something, faggot?” the first one asks, eliciting chortling laughter from the second. Castiel feels his face flush.

“No,” he mutters, shuffling away as quickly as possible.

The whole party seems to shun him, though not consciously. Everyone just...already has their friends, and isn't interested in meeting new ones. They're already grouped or paired off, with established histories, and none of them include the mousy bookworm with the big family and the fucked-up Thing That Happened in his past. Anna moves so easily amongst people; she's daring and bold and funny, but immediately charming and obviously smart. She is Luke and Michael combined—the promise of wild fun tempered by intellect that draws people to her like a magnet.

Compared to her, Castiel really is a shadow. He's too quiet, too cerebral, too out of touch. It's the case with all of his siblings; Gabriel is a loudmouthed class clown who gets perfect grades, Michael and Luke were almost universally adored, and even the impossibly nerdy Samandriel is a whiz kid at computer programming and popular amongst all the smart kids at school.

Castiel wishes he'd just stayed home with his books.

Eventually he finds the room where everyone has thrown their coats, and, after disturbing a couple making out on top of them, he retrieves his jacket and heads out into the warm night.

It's official: Castiel Novak does not know how to make friends.

.

**(Now)**

Castiel is in his office, haunched over papers, when he hears a knock at his door frame and looks up to see Anna.

“How's it going?”

Castiel sighs. “I don't know if I can do this.”

“Smoke damage? Sure you can. You do that stuff all the time.”

Cas shakes his head and indicates one of his piles of paper. “These are Dean Winchester's. So far I've found a birthday card for an eight-year-old, burned almost beyond recognition, and the pages of his father's diary...they're incredibly personal.”

Anna frowns. “This has never bothered you before. Why now?”

Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I don't know,” he sighs. “It's odd. Dean isn't a friend, but it feels as though I'm getting far too personal with aspects of his life. It's as if...as if—”

“—as if you're watching him undress from the window across the street?” Anna volunteers.

“Anna!”

She grins. “Sorry. But I think I get what you mean. For whatever reason, Dean's not just another client to you. And that's fine, you know.”

“No, it isn't. I should just give these back and cancel the arrangement,” Cas says, before noticing Anna's shaking her head furiously.

“No, Castiel. You shouldn't,” she replies. “Dean's not a friend—yet. Maybe he should become one. Remember the terms of our deal?”

“You were serious about that?”

Anna's brow furrows. “I never joke about holding you hostage in social situations, Castiel Novak. You should know that by now. So go and make friends with Dean.”

As she walks down the hall, Castiel finds himself remembering: _The conversational avenue by which men become friends_. The quandary which made him follow Dean into drunkenness in the first place.

Perhaps it's time to put some theories to the test.

.

Dean's doorbell rings at about eight, as he's clearing the dishes from dinner. Wiping his hands on a dish towel, he answers the door to find Castiel standing on his porch.

“...What?”

“Hello, Dean.” Man, those blue eyes are intense. “I hope I'm not interrupting you at anything.”

“Not really. What's up?”

Castiel's smile is formal on the approximate level of Have-You-Heard-The-Good-Word-Of-The-Lord-Jesus-Christ, which is a little unnerving. “I have a proposal for you. If you're free, I would like to come inside.”

Dean wants to ask if there are any cult rituals involved, but instead he says: “...does Anna know you're here?”

“That's part of what I'd like to discuss. May I come in?”

Dean is massively confused, but he steps aside and lets Castiel's trench coat swish past his shins. He follows Cas into the kitchen and watches as the guy begins exploring cupboards.

“...looking for something, buddy?”

Castiel sets two mugs on the counter. “We're going to sit down and talk. Do you have any coffee?”

“Talk? About what?”

“About ourselves. I think you're interesting, Dean. I'd like to know more about you, and I would like to tell you a little bit about myself.”

“There really isn't much to tell,” Dean begins, but he's stopped short by the intensity of Castiel's raised eyebrow.

“I'm sure that's not true. Now; coffee?”

“...over the toaster.”

By the time Dean fully catches up to what's happening, the pot is already brewing. No one, except Sam, has ever just barged into his life so casually before. The direct contrast of Castiel's formal politeness and his rather egregious intrusion into Dean's space is difficult to reconcile. For a brief moment Dean opens his mouth to ask Castiel to leave, but realizes that he doesn't _want_ to kick him out. There's no getting out of this one; there's an intriguing appeal to Castiel's business-like approach to socializing. And in Dean's own house, too; _well-played, Novak_.

And then Castiel is right in front of him, offering Dean a cup, breaking him from reverie: “Which of the couches would you prefer?”

The quizzical look in Dean's eye remains, but he accepts the mug as Cas heads towards the living room. “I think I have a box of cookies somewhere, actually. D'you like ginger snaps?”

“I don't know of anyone who doesn't.”

Dean chuckles. “Hang on, I'll put 'em on a plate.” They sit; Dean throws on Pink Floyd for mild background noise, and then Cas begins to talk. He tells Dean about growing up in one of the richest families in New England—about shuffling from private school to private school, and whipping through extracurricular activities every night for almost his entire childhood. Castiel, one of the many Novak siblings, was expected to do great things by sheer virtue of his name. He talks about his brothers—of Samandriel, who developed a tech startup while still a freshman and sold it to one of the top web companies in the world, becoming a millionaire before he was old enough to rent a car. Of Gabriel, who charmed the pants off of men and women alike with his endless wit and sardonic outlook. Of handsome, charismatic Michael, his father's favorite, destined to take over the Novak legacy. And of Michael's twin brother Luke—younger by six minutes—the sullen, difficult, inspired, creative, manic whirlwind.

Cas describes the moment when he realized that he could not follow the path of his father, and declared his rebellion by transitioning into document restoration—a field of work involving hours of dusty libraries, delicate collections, and contemplative analysis. Changing the world by tiny fragments, gently coaxing meaning back into something entirely chaotic. He liked knowing that he was caring for and loving the things which were old and forgotten and lost. Maintaining the truth, at all costs, and preserving it forever.

Then, before he can stop himself, Dean talks, too. He tells Castiel about losing his mother Mary to a house fire when he was about four and Sam was just a baby. How John dragged his sons back and forth across the country for the next eighteen years, unable to bear settling into a home without his wife. John took odd jobs—hunting, bartending, fixing cars, private investigation. They never lasted long and rarely resulted in anything but a handful of cash and a hasty departure from town. Dean recalls with fondness the adventures he had, living in motel rooms and playing teacher, adversary, mentor, and wrestling coach to Sam. Better than any stuffy school education, Dean learned to hustle pool and play cards, and how to pick out an easy mark in a bar. He talks about how proud he was when Sam got a full ride scholarship to university, and how betrayed he felt when his little brother abandoned him. And how they reconnected three years later, when a friend of the family, Bobby Singer, finally convinced John to buy into an auto shop in the same city where Sam attended school. The two elder Winchesters finally found a home and something to do with themselves each day; Sam even began coming by for dinners, watching the game, introducing Jessica. They were a halfway normal family for less then eleven months before the car accident tore it all apart.

By the time both men have run out of words, they've gone through the entire pot of coffee and most of the ginger snaps. Dean uncaps a decanter of scotch and pours two shots.

“Dean. Liquor? Really?”

“Oh, shut up,” Dean grins. As they fall silent into their tumblers, 'Wish You Were Here' kicks up on the stereo, and Cas leans his chin on his hand and sighs.

“Two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, indeed.”

Dean purses his lips, amused. “I don't know about _lost_ , Cas. At least, I'm not lost. You look like you're perpetually confounded, but—don't pout at me, dude, it's the truth!”

“...well, uh...you work in grease all day,” Castiel attempts.

Dean puffs out his chest proudly. “Damn straight I do. And don't knock the work, because ladies love a guy who's good with his hands.”

Castiel gives Dean the highest eyebrow yet. “Dean. I studied the violin for thirteen years. Believe me, I know.”

And then Dean bursts out laughing, and ginger cookie crumbs spray _everywhere_ , and Pink Floyd has encouraged them to shine on enough that it seems like an incredibly good idea, and when Castiel invites Dean and Sam over for drinks sometime Dean's acceptance is genuine and true.

And _that_ is the conversational avenue by which men become friends.

.

Castiel arrives home late, and Anna's bedroom door is closed. He traverses the old wood floors with ease, avoiding the known creaky spots like a light-footed cat. Their condo is one half of a very old house; it's narrow and often dark in the hallways, but tonight the moonlight is shining through the old leaded glass windows on the stair and bathing Cas in its cool glow. His bedroom is past hers, at the end of the hall, and there's an envelope taped to the door.

Cas waits until he's fully inside his room, door closed and coat hung up, before sitting on his bed and clicking on his lamp. There's a note inside the envelope:

_I managed to wrangle a name out of Balthazar: Samuel Colt. Apparently a business associate from back in the day. Never say I don't keep my promises._

That night Castiel dreams of fire and twins and answers to the very oldest questions he knows.


	7. The Sanguine Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm not lying when I say that I've listened to Carl Nielsen's second symphony hundreds of times, and the final few minutes of the last movement many hundreds. I may have a problem.
> 
> If you wish to listen to what is probably my favourite piece of classical music ever, please do go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87AQsWeUjCc. The part that I reference in the chapter takes place at about 31:00.

“The heaviness that I hold in my heart belongs to gravity.  
The heaviness that I hold in my heart’s been crushing me.” - Sleeping at Last

.

Restoring a car is like making love to a woman, Dean's often thought, except with a lot more engine grease and blow jobs only if you've got a very specific sort of fetish. Working on the Morgan is an experience that wavers between giddily fun and incredibly fussy. She's an old lady, all right, and sometimes it really does feel as though Dean is trying to seduce someone's dour old great-grandmother—and what a mental image _that_ makes. He's under the chassis of the car one Monday afternoon, tinkering with the suspension with careful hands, when a voice comes from above him:

“Castiel _Novak_ , you said?”

Dean jumps, startled, and whacks his head on the Morgan's engine. Scowling, he rolls out from under the car to see a head of blonde hair and a snarky smile. “Jo, what the hell?”

She looks back at her phone. “Did you say his name is Castiel Novak?”

“...yes? When I was talking to Bobby, this morning, when you should have been in classes.”

Jo rolls her eyes. “I dropped philosophy. Now, will you tell me the name of your car buddy or not? Because if he's the Castiel Novak I think he is, with a cousin named Anna and both from Boston, then you've got yourself in deep.”

Dean sighs, wiping his forehead with the cleanest rag he can reach. Nineteen-year-old Jo is Bobby's stepdaughter, and—though he'd never admit it—one of Dean's favorite people. She's got the same spark that carried him through many years of hustling pool, except she's got the advantage of being both blonde and utterly fearless. Now she's sitting on the counter, popping a piece of bubblegum and watching him work with professional disinterest.

Resigned, Dean lies back down on the creeper. “Can you hand me the number 5 wrench, at least?” he asks as he rolls back under the car. Eventually the requested tool appears by his hand. “Thank you. And yes, that's the same Castiel. Why do you ask?”

“Dude's family makes the Koch brothers look like saints,” Jo says. “Hedge funds, real estate bullshit, lots of stock market involvement. Daddy Novak is one of the biggest Republican PAC funders on the East coast and it looks like Cas' half-brother Uriel is the one who buried the lead on at least one love child amongst the President's top brass.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“The love child came forward. But only after eighteen years; the guy is paid to make the big scandals just disappear.”

Dean stops adjusting a lug nut. “Why does this matter?”

He can almost see Jo's sardonic glance in his mind. “Because you're restoring a car for a dictator, Dean.”

“I am not, you liar.”

“Okay, he's not a dictator,” Jo concedes. “But Abraham Novak is an awful person. You should be careful hanging out with two Novaks, Dean. They're kind of assholes.”

“Cas isn't an asshole,” Dean rolls up a little to a different part of the suspension. “He doesn't like his family either, and none of us choose how we're born.”

“Don't say I didn't warn you.”

Dean is engrossed in the car. “Cas is different,” he mutters freely. “He's smart—way smarter than me. It's weird. I don't know why he hangs out with me so much—he reads all the Russian authors and knows so much about classical music and history and I'm a dumbass who barely finished high school. And he's got a good sense of humor. He listens when I talk—like, _really_ listens. He's good at his job. He's...he's good. He is just a good person,” Dean finishes, realizing with a lurch that he's been rambling a little. He feels his cheeks flush red and thanks every God in heaven that he can't currently be seen.

Jo, at least, seems satisfied. “Fair enough. But let the record show a pre-emptive I-told-you-so.”

“Noted.”

As he listens to Jo's footsteps fade into the distance, Dean feels an odd anxiety blossom in his chest. He doesn't know why, but the whole conversation has made him squirrelly. Maybe it's just the fact that he's staring at a chassis which will require custom-made parts due to its age, but something just irks him, and he hates it. With a long sigh Dean rolls out from under the car and goes to make himself a coffee, his mind filled with engine patches and battery strengths and all the welding he'll have to do. The car draws his focus very well, and Dean completely forgets the faraway nagging itch in his mind—an itch about something he cannot quite name, and isn't sure that he wants to.

.  
 **(February)**

Castiel and Dean sit in the cramped restoration lab in the basement of the university library, drinking beers and watching the vacuum chamber work its magic on a small sheet of paper from John's file. Classical music emanates from a set of small speakers.

“So, Dean, is it actually that bad to listen to classical once in a while?”

“I actually don't mind this one,” Dean says, indicating the stereo with his bottle. “It's got some punch to it.”

“Mhm, it's Carl Nielsen's second symphony, The Four Temperaments. Very revealing piece.”

“Revealing? Does it have a history of nip slips or something?”

Cas chuckles, which surprises Dean; even he knows that joke was dumb as hell. “Each of the four movements sketches out one of the four personalities associated with the humors of the body. The Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Sanguine—it's pseudoscience, of course, but an intriguing personality test.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean cracks another two beers and hands Cas one of them. “What personality am I?”

Castiel thinks for a minute, taking a drink. “Probably Choleric. Fiery, extroverted, restless, with vast reserves of energy, passion, and aggression. Best when approached with mutual respect and appropriate challenges.”

Dean sits back a little, genuinely unsettled. “I...wow. Pretty accurate, for a pseudoscience.”

“The personality types do exist, even if the framework is erroneous,” Castiel replies.

“And what personality would you be?”

“Phlegmatic, I'd say.”

Dean jokingly scoots his chair a few inches away. “No coughing on me, Phlegmy McPhlegmerson.”

The vacuum beeps, and Castiel pulls on a pair of white cotton gloves and carefully opens the inner chamber to inspect the results. “It doesn't mean I'm full of mucous, Dean.”

While he works, Dean pulls up the definition on his phone. “Hm. 'Phlegmatics are thoughtful, patient, reasonable, tolerant, and private, with rich inner lives.' Well, aren't you just a saint?”

“I can't help who I am,” Castiel replies genially, picking up the piece of paper with some large tweezers and placing it into a metal tray.

“So I guess that's your favourite part of this symphony, huh? The phlegmy section?”

Castiel brings the paper over to the table and sits back down. “Actually, no,” he says, reaching over to the stereo and turning up the volume. “The best part is actually the finale, which is coming up now.

Dean takes a swig of beer. “Why d'you like it?” He watches Castiel's fingers dance across the newly restored piece of paper.

“It's about the Sanguine personality, a man who moves through life as if it's a game,” Cas says. “He believes that everything will come easily to him and that things are not complicated or difficult. Then he has a moment when something genuinely frightens him; it causes him to stop in his tracks, and it forever alters his worldview. The key of the music changes from major to minor, and the tune becomes contemplative and somewhat serious. Even when he recovers, and the music bounces back to up-tempo and generally joyful, the key remains minor.” Cas smooths the paper with his impossibly clean white glove. “It's the moment when a portion of innocence is lost forever, and things will never be the same as they once were. You can't undo that moment.”

Despite the beer in his hand, Dean's mouth suddenly feels dry. He slouches down in his chair and listens as the symphony concludes. Then he reaches over and picks up the paper; it was once a photograph, but the image has been permanently obliterated by smoke damage. “Things are never the same as they once were,” he repeats softly, tracing imaginary faces and bodies with a fingertip.

One side is almost totally blank, with only a ghostly afterimage of what could have once been there. The other side is inscribed: _Dean and Baby Sam with Mom at the lake_.

This happens, sometimes, with smoke damage. There's never any guarantee of recovery.

_We are all the Sanguine man_ , Castiel wants to say, but instead he drains his beer and averts his gaze when he sees the tears well up in Dean's eyes.

.

“Hello?”

“Balthazar. Hi.”

“Well well well. Castiel, as I live and breathe. How goes life on the West Coast? We missed you at the reunion.”

“No you didn't. I wasn't even invited.”

“Well, we who weren't on the planning committee missed you. A little.”

“Thanks.”

“What can I do for you?”

Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. “I want to know more about Samuel Colt.”

He can almost see his half-brother's shrug. “Sorry, my man. Got nothing more.”

“You're kidding.”

“Wish I was. I only know about Colt because I overheard Dad talking about him and the twins a few years ago on the phone.”

Castiel feels his stomach drop all the way to his toes, and an awful anxiety grip his throat. “...Dad talked about Michael and Luke?”

“Surprised me too, but yeah. I think he was talking to Uncle Raphael. He said something about how 'that son of a bitch' Samuel Colt was dead, and that no, it wouldn't bring _them_ back, but he'd be raising a glass anyway. Never actually said their names, of course.”

Cas sits down, a little too hard. “Do you think this Colt was involved in the—the fire?”

“Castiel, listen.” Balthazar's voice has a rare serious edge. “The fire was due to an electrical malfunction. We've known that for years. There was no foul play; it was just an accident.”

He feels the seed of hope crumble. “Yeah.”

“Anna is obsessed with the fire; it fucked her right up, though I'm not at all surprised. She's not as stable as she makes everyone think she is.”

“Do you think she needs help?”

“Not immediately, but both of you need to go out and get a better hobby. It's been over a decade. I know they meant a lot to you but you may just want to let Michael and Luke go.”

“They were your brothers too,” Castiel says, trying to mask the hurt in his voice.

“I know. But there's a difference between mourning a major loss and becoming obsessed with the idea that there's a big murder conspiracy. I gave Anna the tidbit she wanted so badly but I'm trusting you to keep it in check; you'll find nothing, and she trusts you. Let her down easy.”

“Thanks, Balthazar,” Castiel spits.

“But,” Balthazar concedes, “With _all_ of that said, _if_ there is more to the fire than everyone else thinks and believes, then I have a sneaking suspicion that Samuel Colt is the right place to start.”

“I can't find anything on him. And that's actually why I called.”

“Like I said, I can't help you.”

Castiel cradles the phone to his ear while he unscrews a bottle of wine. “Could you do one thing for me? Get me a copy of the company tax records?”

Balthazar laughs, almost a bark in Cas' ear. “You ask for the moon, Castiel. But I'll do what I can and get back to you.”

There's a _click_ when he hangs up. Castiel begins pouring wine, reaches the standard serving line, pauses for a second, and with a shrug he plows right through and fills the glass nearly to the top. _Fuck. Fuck everything._ He squeezes his eyes shut against the suddenly harsh glare from the kitchen light. _Just god damn it all to hell._

The most frustrating part is how much he wants to call Dean, to tell him about what's going on, but there's no logical reason to do so. Dean isn't involved in this; he'd probably be annoyed that Cas was bothering him over something that doesn't pertain to the restoration project. Castiel isn't good at socializing; he doesn't want to chase away one of the only men in the city he's successfully managed to befriend. So he'll say nothing.

_Michael and Luke. I wonder what you'd think of me now,_ Cas thinks. The truth is, he didn't have the best relationship with the twins when they were alive; he was their little brother, doggedly following behind them, playing the classic buzzkill during their adventures. The awkward, anxious planet transiting a pair of blazing stars. Castiel had always known that they'd make much better friends as adults than as children, only he never got that chance.

_Would you be proud? Would we talk at all, or would you be like the rest of my family?_

He pours another glass of wine.

_Would I still be here at all?_ Impossible to tell.

_How much of my life was born on that horrible afternoon?_


	8. The Truth is a Cave

“I've seen the true face of the things you call Life  
The song of the siren that holds your desires  
But Death, she is cunning, and clever as hell  
And she'll eat you alive.” - The Oh Hellos 

.

In the end, Sam concludes, bow ties are actually the worst. It doesn't matter what the Eleventh Doctor says; bow ties are absolute bullshit. Fiddly, atrociously difficult little bastards—Bobby's showed him how to tie it dozens of times, but Sam always struggles. It makes him feel like he's back in middle school, getting ready for prom—covered in pimples and palms clammy with sweat. But he's twenty-six; it's the premiere of the symphony season, Anna is taking center stage with some sort of complicated concerto, and as a VIP invited guest Sam is expected to wear a bow tie. 

Sam is getting ready to go, fiddling with the satin strip around his neck, when Jessica appears by the bathroom door with her arms folded across her chest.

“Jess? What's up?”

Her lip trembles. “Sam, what is this?” She timidly holds out his phone, unlocked and opened to a weeks-old text conversation with Anna. 

_Anna: Sam, here is your Official Friendly Advice: don't quit school_

_Sam: Already done. Kanye shrug._

_Anna: Can we at least meet to talk about it? Vermillion, at 8?_

_Sam: Fine. See you then._

Sam feels suddenly cold. “You snooped through my phone?”

Jess has tears in her eyes. “I'm worried about you, Sam! You're going and coming at odd hours, you're drinking far more than you used to, you hang around the house instead of exercising. I am fucking concerned!”

“Well, don't be. I'm fine.” He turns back to the mirror to re-attempt the bow tie. 

“Sam!” Jessica cries. “You quit school?! Why?”

He sighs heavily. “C'mon, Jess. Don't do this right now.”

“You bet I'm doing this right now. Why have you stopped going to school? Why are you throwing away your scholarship—your future? If your father knew—”

Sam whips around and grabs the phone from her with such force that he feels her fingers scrape against his. “If you say another word about my father—”

“— you'll what, Sam? Hit me? Are you that far gone?”

This stops him cold, and he feels his grip soften. “...Jesus, Jess. No.” He turns back to the mirror to try the knot again. “I just...I'm figuring stuff out, okay? Let it go. I'm fine; I just needed a break, that's all.”

But she won't stop. “How long have you been out of school?”

He shrugs. “Maybe a month?”

In the mirror, Sam sees Jess' jaw drop. “You're going to lose your scholarship, Sam. You need to call tomorrow and see if you can fix this—maybe do a medical withdrawal for the rest of the semester so you don't fail out, or—”

“— seriously, Jess, just drop it.” The edge is back in Sam's voice. “I have it under control.” He finishes tying his bow tie, and turns around to her hurt-filled face. “Can we go, and have a good time, and talk about this later?”

He doesn't wait for an answer. In the kitchen, Sam cracks open a beer and sits down to wait for Jess to finish getting ready, and somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes that he's actually more annoyed at the bow tie than he is about the fight.

.

“ I should have left you at the Wet Lion with your tequila, because you're a jerk. You've dragged me into a pit of Hell.”

“ Nonsense, Dean, you're doing fine.”

“ I look like a freakin' penguin.”

Castiel reaches out to adjust Dean's bow tie. “You look perfectly acceptable. Anna and I invited you because we like you. And the classical music community is rather welcoming, you'll see.”

Dean casts a look around the lavish private room, where symphony season pass holders and patrons are sipping champagne and nibbling on hors d'oeuvres. Most of them are over sixty-five, and he can just tell that the average income is in the six figures. It certainly doesn't  _ feel _ welcoming, even with Anna's smile beaming down from the official concert poster on the wall.

“ This was a terrible idea.”

“ You're being dramatic.”

“ Cas, you are a nice guy, but that pretty suit won't stop me from punching you in the face.”

Castiel starts to hustle Dean towards their private box seats, following Sam and a sullen-looking Jess inside the theatre. “Sure. Just wait until after Anna's solo, will you? I've been listening to her practice for weeks and I'm anxious to hear this concerto for the last time.”

“ I should have stayed home and watched  _ Project Runway, _ ” Dean grumbles.

“ What was that?”

“ Wrestling. I said wrestling.”

Castiel leans over to whisper as the lights go down: “Wrestling airs on Sundays, Dean.”

“ God damn it, Cas, why are you such a monster?”

**.**

Dean may be in an uncomfortable suit and wildly out of his element, but Castiel is impressed; his new friend has paid rapt attention to the symphony so far. They played Nielsen's Helios Overture as an opener, and now Anna is about to take the stage for the main event. 

The audience applauds politely as she makes her entrance from stage right. Anna takes her seat at the gleaming grand piano, places her hands on the keys, gives the tiniest of nods to the director—and then the world is exploding with music, and Cas can feel himself swimming.

It's always been this way. Even before Anna took up the piano, Castiel has had a visceral relationship with music. More than just enjoyment, he feels the movement of the orchestra as his own heartbeat; each swell crashes over him like an ocean wave, yanking him into an emotional tide that is disorienting, overwhelming, and incredibly pleasurable. He used to listen to Chopin alone in the dark and cry for how beautiful it was.

It no longer matters that Dean may be having a terrible time, or that Sam is obviously fighting with his girlfriend. It doesn't matter that his brothers are dead or his relationship with his father is strained. Castiel takes a deep breath as he feels every anxiety lift from his chest, as he lets it all go so he can swim in the invisible waters of music.

Out of the corner of his eye, Castiel sees Dean shift so he can better see Anna as her hands move impossibly fast.  _ Does Dean understand music as a religious experience? _ he wonders.  _ Would he laugh if I told him about it? _

The anxiety of the real world returns. Castiel spends the rest of the concerto watching Dean out of the corner of his eye, trying to analyze every movement and shift to ascertain if he's having a good time. It's not until the finale—a big, bombastic, wonderful thing where Anna gets to really show off her speed and precision—that he gets an answer: Dean is leaning forward, chin resting on the heel of his hand, and when the strings swell up for the big finish Castiel sees him close his eyes and breathe it all in. And maybe it's the power of the music rushing over him, but Castiel can swear that his heart flutters in his chest. He goes to put his hand on Dean's shoulder, to nonverbally assure him  _ it's okay, this is normal, I feel it too _ , but the concerto ends and everyone is on their feet applauding and the moment passes before it even had a chance to begin.

**.**

Sam takes two flutes of champagne from a waiter's tray, and downs one of them in a few smooth sips. Ignoring the raised eyebrow from the waiter, he replaces the empty glass with another full one and glides across the room to Jess' side.

Tonight Jess is in a lovely dark purple gown, with opera-length white gloves and diamonds at her neck and earlobes—a one-year anniversary gift from Sam. She's swept her blonde hair into an elegant updo; the only betrayal that anything is wrong is the brief flash of hurt in her eyes when she takes a flute from Sam without a word.

“ You're welcome,” Sam whispers steely, but she's noticed a few friends across the room and hails them, walking over to converse and ignoring him completely.

Oh well.

Sam busies himself with his champagne as he surveys the room. He isn't drunk, but his head is buzzing pleasantly; he feels dangerous and powerful and it's fantastic. He's not worried about maintaining a cover story in case anyone ever asks about his family. He's not trying to be as polite as possible to prove to his invisible critics that the Winchesters actually have class.  _ I feel like breaking all kinds of rules tonight _ .

As if on cue, Sam sees the most  _ incredible _ pair of legs leaning against the wine bar. They seem to go on forever, mostly because their owner—a brunette woman—is wearing the shortest, tightest black dress he's ever seen. On any other woman the dress would be incredibly inappropriate, nigh pornographic, but it hits her curves in all the right ways and she is clearly confident about how it makes her look.

Sam has to gulp a little as she turns her head and they make eye contact. The girl winks, then steps back to the bar and leans over—way, way over—to murmur something into the bartender's ear.

Jesus rollerblading Christ.

Old Sam would have been nervous. New Sam feels his feet move smoothly— _ a shark gliding through the water— _ to the bar, right up to her, where he nonchalantly orders a Merlot. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her smirk. When she moves away from the bar, Sam remains still, drinks his wine, and watches her go, meeting her gaze when she looks back and winks at him.

Is she beckoning him to follow, motioning come-hither with a finger? Sam tries not to think of that hand in other places as he starts to move toward her, pushing through the crowd. She's his prey; he is hers. Sam is just about to reach the brunette when he's stopped so suddenly that he nearly slops wine onto his shirt. Furious, he looks down at the interloper—Dean.

“ Can we talk?” 

There's something in his older brother's eyes that Sam can't quite read, but it ignites a tiny spark of anxiety.  _ Has he talked to Jess? _ “Uh, sure, Dean. What's up?”

Dean casts his gaze towards the side door. “Outside?”

Sam looks over Dean's shoulder for the brunette, but she's gone. With an imperceptible sigh, he nods. “Okay.”

The evening chill whips through Sam's dinner jacket, and he suppresses a shiver. “So, again, what's up?” 

Sam braces himself internally for a lecture on the nature of commitment to goals and loving your partner. He takes a deep breath, preparing to explain his brand new giving-no-fucks philosophy if he has to—though it's been nice, having this little secret all to himself, with no one to opine or chastise or—

“ I have some news. About Dad.” Dean kicks at a bit of snow stuck to the walkway. 

Sam wants to say  _ Wait, what?, _ but instead he blinks. “ Oh. Um.”

Dean makes careful and very deliberate eye contact. “Someone gave me his journal. A new one—I haven't seen it before. I don't know when it's from, but it's all burnt up.”

Sam swallows, and he sees Dean's face contort just a little bit into a mask of self-loathing and concern—he's regretting saying anything at all. Sam knows a lot of things, and his older brother is one of his specialties; the guy has a terrible poker face in certain situations, including this one. That's how Sam knows that Dean thinks he's reacting to the journal; in reality, Sam is happy that no one has discovered his secret.

The introspective silence lasts about a beat too long, and Sam clears his throat. “A-a journal, huh?”

“ I've taken it to Cas. He restores documents.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “And that's how you ended up getting blindingly drunk with him?”

“ What?”

“ I said: Oh, that's lovely for you, so lucky you met Castiel and then called me at four in the morning,” he mutters.

“ Oh, come on, Sammy, let it go.”

Sam adjusts his cuffs. “So what's this journal stuff got to do with me?”

Dean's face goes temporarily slack. “...I thought you'd want to know. It's  _ Dad _ .”

“ Well, yeah. Of course,” Sam covers. “So. What have you found?”

“ Nothing yet. Cas says he's still working through the first few pages.”

Sam leans against the wall and winces as the cold zaps through his jacket right to his skin. “Well, keep me in the loop, I guess?”

A silence falls between them, and it lasts a beat too long. For the very first time in a while, Dean asks: “...You doing okay, Sam?”

He can barely conceal his smirk. “Yeah, Dean. I'm great.”

Dean is skeptical, but after a second his face relaxes. “Okay. You've just seemed different, lately.”

Sam shrugs. “I've been sleeping better,” he explains. It's technically the truth. “School stress letting up a little.” Also a technical truth.

As they walk inside, Sam tries to control his breathing. He's overcome with a rush of exhilaration as the reality of the situation sinks in: he's just successfully lied to  _ Dean _ , the one person who has always been able to call Sam on his shit, and for now he's in the clear.  _ Score another point for Not Giving a Fuck, _ he thinks, smoothing down his hair and rejoining the party. The brunette is nowhere to be seen, but it doesn't matter; Sam has all the time and all the opportunity in the world. 

.

Dean heads for the bar to get himself a beer, mentally replaying the conversation he's just had with his brother and trying to find out what's sticking out and making him feel so  _ wrong _ . Sam is an adult now, his own man, and Dean has no right to interfere with what is, by all accounts, a perfectly successful life. All the same, he finds himself worrying, even though he can't quite pin down exactly what's bothering him. 

Dean orders a bottle of beer and situates himself on a set of stairs off to the side of the ballroom, slightly hidden by a large plant. He's just tipped his head back for a long pull when he sees a flash of red in the corner of his eye, as Anna sits down beside him and winks.

“ Hiding away, Dean?”

Before responding, he takes a second to subtly look Anna up and down. She's in a dark green dress that hugs close to her body and plunges low on her back—Dean has no idea how, but she's simultaneously classy and seductive. He raises his bottle. “I wanted to enjoy a beer in peace. Is that a crime?”

Anna grins cheekily and sips her champagne. “Not at all. I completely understand the feeling; this is a tough crowd.”

Dean snorts. “Please. Anna, you and Cas are right at home here.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You'd be surprised, Dean. We rub elbows with the upper crust out of habit, not choice.” When he gives her a raised eyebrow in return, she playfully smacks his arm. “I'm serious! I play piano, that's all. Cas is a librarian who gets his hands dirty. You should meet the rest of our family.”

“ Yeah, I got the impression.”

Anna sips champagne and sits back on her elbows. “Thanks for coming, anyway. Hope you're at least enjoying the open bar?”

Dean tips his bottle to her as a toast. “Thanks for inviting me and Sam. But yeah, this is more his type of party.”

“ I can tell. Next time we can go see monster trucks or something.”

“ ...next time?”

Anna's eyes sparkle mischievously. “I mean, if you want to.”

And then Dean clues in. He grins back. “Anna, would you like to go out sometime?”

She nods formally, blinking slowly. “Yes, Dean Winchester, I think that would be fun.” When she opens her eyes, she sees someone across the room and waves. “Oh! Hey, it's Ruby. Ruby!” she calls, then looks back at Dean. “Come meet her. She's wild.”

With a shrug, Dean stands up and offers Anna his hand to help her up. Together they stroll to the middle of the room to meet Anna's friend. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see Castiel talking with an elderly couple whose faces are puckered into scowls. He also sees Sam nearby, and beckons him over. Across the room, Dean sees a flash of blonde and purple, and turns just in time to see Jess' tear-streaked face as she speed-walks out of the ballroom as quickly as her heels can take her.

_ What the hell is that about? _ Dean wonders, looking back to a nonchalant Sam as he saunters over.

Anna presents her friend, a gorgeous brunette in an offensively tight black dress. “This is my new friend Dean Winchester—and his brother Sam. Hey, Sam. This is Ruby.”

Ruby's grin is wicked. In the months to come, Dean will look back on this moment with dread and horror and wish upon all wishes that he'd never beckoned his little brother to come meet her. But he doesn't know any of this yet—just that Ruby seems fun.

“Hello, Dean and Sam,” she purrs, savouring the sounds. “It is a  _ pleasure _ .”

That's another way life can irreparably change.


	9. The Big Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in this chapter! I confess I ran into a little bit of writer's block. 
> 
> If you enjoy this, please let me know and leave a review. It would mean a lot!

“How much more am I supposed to take?

How much more am I supposed to break?

You asked for time, and time takes you away.” - Stars

.

**(March)**

Sam has been sleeping on the couch for twenty-two days.

He counts them each morning, when he wakes up with a crick in his neck from where he's had to crunch himself into the small space all night. He curses himself for not springing for a sofa bed or a futon back when they were decorating, but neither he nor Jess had many out-of-town friends and, of course, at the time of purchase he never anticipated having to spend an indefinite amount of time sleeping in the living room.

Every morning, Sam wakes up and does three things: he carefully stretches out his neck; he changes the passcode on his phone; and he pads down the hall to the bedroom and checks that Jess still lives there. Despite the fact that she's barely spoken more than two dozen words to him in the past few weeks, Sam always checks to be sure that she hasn't left him for good—that her makeup is still scattered across the bathroom counter, that her clothes are still in the closet and her old teddy bear named Kitten is still slumped on her dresser. He rarely sees Jess herself; it turns out that two people can live almost completely independent lives in the same apartment with relative ease. It actually took more effort to spend time together than it does to avoid one another, which is both saddening and somewhat of a relief.

It's been a rough few weeks, to say the least.

Sam misses Jess, but he's so angry—and, at the same time, somehow so incapable of giving a shit—that he's willingly slept on a couch that is far too small for twenty-two days. He changes his passcode every day because he'll be damned if he allows her to snoop on his life ever again—not that it's much of a life, right now. Sam is kind of aimless and totally without a plan. He kind of likes it that way, but the people in his life would be— _are—_ horrified.

He knows Jess is waiting for him to concede her point of view, to go back to school and apologize for leaving in the first place. That's all very reasonable, but Sam just doesn't want to do it. Doing nothing for once is _pleasurable_. It's freeing. He doesn't have to worry about a single thing other than his beer getting warm.

So he'll sleep on the couch for as long as it takes—until Jess apologizes for looking through his phone, or until she just straight up leaves. Either option, Sam reasons, will result in the reclamation of his side of the bed.

.

“Sam?”

He turns around, pulling his earbuds from one ear, and hey—wouldn't you know, it's Ruby.

“Oh! Hey. How's it going?”

She grins and holds up a six-pack of strong beer from Quebec. “It's 9.3% going.”

Sam chuckles. “Sounds like a good night.”

“Join me?”

He pauses for a moment, getting some dirty looks from the patrons behind them as the line moves on. But his mind is already made up. “Sure.”

They pay for their products, and Ruby leads Sam a few blocks away to a small park. It's cold and wet, so the jungle gym is deserted; they sit on the top of the structure and drink, observing their very small kingdom. Ruby has an almost perpetual smirk and she keeps pace with Sam as they work through her beer and make small talk. Sam discovers that she works in ticket sales at the theater, which is how she met Anna—the two women struck up an unlikely friendship during a particularly dull reception one night and she's been indulging Anna's wilder side ever since. Sam talks a little bit too, carefully making mention of Jess and how he lives with her, but leaving out the small detail about the couch situation.

Ruby's eyes are so dark brown they're almost black, and they glitter a little when she looks at him. “So,” she says, taking a swig, “what brings you to the place in life where you're buying alcohol at noon on a Wednesday?”

Sam cracks up. “Oh, it's just...this new thing I've been doing.”

“Alcoholism?”

He drains the last of the beer in his bottle. “No. Mostly just not giving a fuck.”

“Ahh,” Ruby nods. “Yes. The beautiful tradition of letting it all go. I'm a fan.”

“Somehow I'm not surprised,” Sam says, noting the light teasing tone in his voice.  _ Where did that come from? _

“So how do you reconcile that with a law school schedule?”

He shrugs. “I don't. I quit.”  _ crack _ goes another bottle as he opens it with his keychain. “I needed a goddamn break.”

Ruby nods, understanding. “I'm a proud dropout myself. Political science for a half-second, then half a semester of theater, then...meh. A degree won't do much more than just force me to hang around with jerks who think far too highly of themselves.”

“Oh, you have  _ no _ idea,” Sam agrees. 

And so it goes. By the end, they've gone through her entire six-pack and his bottle of wine, and numbers have been exchanged. Ruby lends Sam her bus pass, since he shouldn't drive. He stumbles away from the park, giddily tipsy, and feels an odd rush of endorphins that shouldn't exist.  _ I was not just on a date. I'm fucking living with someone. _

And yet.

Sam goes home to find that Jess isn't around. He slips into the bedroom, locks the door, climbs into the shower, and jerks off for the first time in weeks and weeks. When he comes, he sees a flash of brown hair and dark eyes and a grin that promises trouble.

It's wrong. He knows it's wrong. But perhaps this is something he shouldn't give a fuck about either.

.

**(One Week Later)**

“Don't you have any good music, Cas?”

“You're joking.”

Dean stands in front of the stereo cabinet, stance wide, shoulders thrown back—for he is the alpha dog, the King of Kings of party music, and this is his kingdom. Anna may have decided to throw this party, but he will be the one who decides the soundtrack; it's his god-given right. He surveys the landscape with a royal eye and sees nothing for miles except classical records, classical CDs, classical tapes ( _seriously? Tapes?_ he thinks) , and some weird bands he's never heard of.

_My kingdom has fallen,_ Dean mourns silently, taking a sip of beer.

“Maybe I can throw on my iPod?” offers Sam, stepping in to mitigate. This is not the first time that Dean's musical demands have ruined a party.

Dean scoffs. “You listen to synth-ey weird indie stuff, dude. This is a gathering of friends, not a poetry reading.” This elicits a chuckle from Anna, which ruffles Dean's proud feathers and makes Cas look constipated.

Ruby pushes Dean out of the way with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Hang on,” she grins, plugging her phone into the USB jack and huddling over it so Dean can't see. For a fleeting moment Dean wants to smack her across the back of the head, because _oh hell, no, Scar, you do NOT bogart Pride Rock—_ but then the speakers roar to life with a beautifully familiar guitar riff and frenetic piano solo. 

It's  _Bat Out of Hell_ .

Ruby turns, eyebrow raised. “Acceptable?”

Dean opens his arms to embrace her. “Welcome to the family,” he sniffs emotionally. “I give you permission to marry Sam and his dowry is fifteen goats.”

“Hey!” 

“Sorry, Sammy, but we can't give away the pigs on you.”

Jess grins, too widely. “Ha ha, Dean. Very funny.”

Meat Loaf's voice fills the apartment as Anna appears from the other room with several impressive joints in hand. “So,” she says, putting one to her lips and passing the other to Ruby. “Shall we get fucked up?”

Dean winks at her as she lights up. “Thought you'd never ask.”

.

Dean has to give credit to Castiel: the guy looks like the ultimate spokesman for D.A.R.E., but it only took a few silent glances from Anna to get him to smoke up. Granted, he coughed up a lung every time he had a toke, but he kept up with the rest of them quite admirably, and now he's just  _amazingly_ high. His eyes are stark red and he's spent half an hour watching Hero meow at everyone, giggling until he can't breathe. 

Now he and Dean are lying on their backs on the end of the porch, feet planted on the stairs, watching the sky. Ruby's excellent playlist has looped around back to Meat Loaf's magnum opus; if he leans his head back, Dean can see upside-down Anna and Ruby dancing to the end of Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

After a few minutes of watching Inverted World Dance Theater, he lights up another joint and passes it over without looking; when it doesn't leave his fingers, Dean glances over.

“Cas. Cas, are you...are you playing air piano?”

“Uh. No?”

“Dude.”

Cas takes the joint. “Well. Um. Heh.”

Dean snorts. “And you wanted to put on Mozart.”

Cas exhales a thin stream of smoke. “I maintain that Mozart is excellent for parties. But  _Bat Out of Hell_ is a classic; everyone knows that.” 

Dean tucks an arm under his head and feels a smile break out on his face. “Castiel Novak, I think you might actually be fun.”

“It happens sometimes,” Cas giggles.

“S'good,” Dean mumbles. “I like fun. There aren't nearly enough fun people in the world today.”

Cas is contemplatively quiet for a moment, and then, in almost a whisper: “I don't think very many people like me. I'm surprised you like me.”

Dean looks up and over, surprised, but Castiel's eyes are closed. “Whaddaya mean?”

Castiel's mouth pulls into a tight line. “I'm odd, Dean. I do not fit. I work in a dying industry because the world refuses to acknowledge the importance of telling its own story. I hate most social situations and would rather be alone. I read instead of watching TV. Who wants to be around someone like that?”

Dean props himself up on his elbows. “Me,” he replies.

Cas opens an eye. “Sorry?”

“I like to be around someone like you,” Dean says. “You're interesting, Cas. And I mean that in a good way.”

“Thank you, Dean. I find you interesting, too.”

“Naw, I'm nothing special,” Dean dismisses. “Cas, seriously. I'm a mechanic who drinks too much.” His heart flutters at the compliment nonetheless.

“I was being honest when I said it during our previous conversations and I'm being honest now. I see no reason to lie. You could easily just be a client; like I said, I'm not good with people. But you live, Dean. You have a sense of the world that is devoid of timidness or anxiety. I...I wish I could be more like you.”

Dean's a little bit floored. His heart is beating so hard, and he pours over every word with the giddy focus that is emblematic of his current intoxicated state. Too late, he realizes that he's been staring at Cas—he hasn't meant to, but those blue eyes are somehow comforting. There's a look in Castiel's gaze that Dean can't read—it borders on the edge of his mind, a look he's seen on other faces at various points throughout his life, but is very foreign to him now. He's just about to put his finger on it when his hazy mind is interrupted by Jess' timid voice:

“Hey guys?”

Dean glances up. “Yeah?”

She looks so lost. “Have you seen Sam? I can't find him.”

Dean shakes his head, and watches in shock as Jess' face crumples in a silent sob. “Jess? You okay?” He crawls to his feet and puts his arms around her, soothing and solid even as his mind reels with the effects of marijuana and confusion.

She sniffs. “It's just...we've been...” A sob. “We've been fighting ever since he quit school, and I don't know where he went, and I can't fight with him again, not tonight, and—”

_He quit school_? Dean feels himself go cold.  “It's okay. I'll go find him,” he reassures, depositing Jessica on the steps. “Cas will take care of you. Hang on.”

Anna is passed out on the couch in the main room, curled around a purring Hero. The cat watches as Dean looks through the kitchen, the living room, Castiel's office, the piano room—and then he hears a giggle from upstairs.

_You've gotta be kidding me._

He tiptoes up to the second floor and stops in front of the source of the sound. Dean pushes on the door, it swings open—and he sees a flurry of movement, two bodies flinging away from each other, and sure enough it's Sam looking guilty and Ruby looking amused. Anger ignites in his heart and he fights the urge to rip the doorknob off.

“Sam, what the _hell_?!”

Ruby's face flushes ever so slightly, and she grins. “Well. I should—I should probably get going,” she says, grabbing her jacket from where it's been discarded on the bed. Dean is frozen in place with rage, and she slips by him before he can even think to stop her. He can feel his hands shake as he watches Sam watching him.

“Dean, it's—”

“—don't. Just don't,” Dean snarls. “I don't care what you have to say. You are _cheating_ on Jessica, Sam. You've been drinking, you _quit school_ —what the fuck is going on? What is _wrong_ with you?”

Sam's eyes darken. “Nothing,” he retorts. “I'm better than I've been in years, Dean.” He straightens up a little and crosses his arms.

“No. You're screwing up your entire future, Sam, over what? Why are you doing this?”

“Please don't yell, Dean.”

“DON'T FUCKING TELL ME NOT TO YELL!” Dean howls. “Sam, do you realize how far from _normal_ you've gotten? How much of a stranger you're becoming?”

Sam sighs. “Come on, Dean. Don't do this. Just let me be for once in your life. Leave me alone.”

“What would Dad think if he saw you right now?”

Sam suddenly slams his fist into the wall. “I don't give a shit!” he yells. “Dad was a drunk fuckup, Dean. He was always a drunk fuckup. He dragged us back and forth across the country our whole lives like we were fugitives, and for what? To catch Mom's killer? Bullshit. Dad had no right to control my life, and neither do you.” He comes to the doorway, towering over Dean, with a horrifyingly dangerous look in his eyes. “Do you think those papers you're having Castiel restore will do anything to change that fact? Are you that stupid, Dean?”

Dean stands his ground. “You have no right to talk about him that way,” he replies in a near-whisper.

“I can talk to you however I want. I can _do_ whatever I want.  You are _not_ my guardian. You are not my father. You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't have to listen to it anymore.  Dean: leave. Me. Alone.”

And despite everything, despite the surge of protective anger and energy coursing through him, Dean falters. He falters, and he hears John Winchester's voice in his head howl with outrage and anger at his failing. Dean stands before this stranger wearing his brother's skin, and he feels twenty-five years of stress and worry weigh on him like an anvil on his chest. _I can't do this. I can't do this anymore._

Dean and Sam stare at each other for a few moments, and it feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room, but in the end Dean steps aside and lets his brother pass. He stands frozen in the doorway, hand on knob, until he hears the front door slam.

 


	10. Once You Pull the Pin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, readers. I've run into some writer's block with this story and it's been a struggle. But with that said, this is probably one of my favorite chapters I've written so far, and includes the very first sex scene I've ever put to page. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you do, please let me know! Your feedback really does keep me inspired.

“Flying like a cannonball, falling to the earth  
Heavy as a feather when you hit the dirt  
How am I the lucky one? I did not deserve  
To wait around forever when you were there first  
First you get hurt, then you feel sorry” - Cold War Kids

.

Anger is like a coiled snake. Waiting, ready, always active.

It takes Dean just over a minute to get from the bedroom down to the back porch. Maybe seventy-five seconds tick by, and then the anger overwhelms him to a point of explosion. In an instant, he's no longer high; he's no longer drunk. He's ready to kill something, and what he sees is a beer bottle sitting on the deck.

It's in his hand and then leaving his hand before he even realizes it. He throws the bottle as hard as he can against the side of the house, where it explodes into shards that twinkle in the crisp spring air. Dean hears Jessica shriek behind him, and inside the house he can see Anna snap awake from the sound.

He's breathing heavy like a bull and the muscles in his back are horribly tense and he's coiled, he's ready, he's waiting to explode.

A hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm. Reassuring, weighty, something to anchor him back to Earth. Dean turns to see Castiel beside him, his blue eyes confused and hurt. “Dean, what's wrong?”

“Is everything okay?” comes Jess' timid voice. He knows she doesn't mean any harm, but to Dean it sounds like screeching nails against a chalkboard. Castiel must sense how frustrated he is, because he turns back to Jess and shakes his head. _No. Not the right time._

Anna's tousled red head appears at the back door, a scowl on her face. “Dean. What in the entire _fuck_ is wrong with you? Why are you destroying my house?”

“Because I felt like it,” he spits.

“Wrong answer.”

“Because it's none of your fucking business.”

Anna steps right up into his personal space and her gaze is like ice. “Try again.”

She's shorter than he is, so this time it is Dean who towers over Anna, but nonetheless she is right where Sam stood a few minutes before—and now Dean's anger is poised to strike with frightening force. But he feels hands gripping him by the shoulders, and he is turned to meet Castiel's blue eyes.

“Dean. Please take three deep breaths.”

There's something about that no-nonsense, impossibly calm voice. Dean finds himself inhaling deep and slow, and his muscles start to relax.

“Okay, seriously, what the hell just happened to you?” Anna's voice is now concerned. 

“Sam,” Dean croaks. “Sam is...he's gone off the deep end. I don't know what happened but he...he's quit law school and he's just...” Behind him, he hears Jess dissolve into quiet, steady weeping.

“Rebelling,” Anna finishes. 

“Excuse me?”

“He's rebelling.” She looks nonchalant. “Listen, Dean. Sam's going through something right now, and he needs to have the independence to just get it out of his system. Leave him alone.”

“You _knew_ about this?!”

Anna shrugs. “A little. I know he stopped going to classes.”

“Why didn't you _say_ something?” Dean knows he sounds hysterical but he can't pull himself together.

“Because it's his life, Dean,” Anna's voice is firm, but not angry. “Sam has the right to do with it what he likes. And you cannot stop him.”

“But—”

“—trust me, Dean,” Anna says, and then turns around to face Jessica. “You too, Jess. Both of you are concerned about Sam, and I get that, but if you try to pen him in he will just act out even more. Let him have a rebellion.”

“Sam already had a rebellion,” Dean grumbles. “When he left for college.”

Anna bursts out laughing, and it sounds crisp and sudden in the cool night air. “Dean. Think about what you just said. Rebellion isn't doing the responsible thing and going to college. C'mon.”

“But—but what about you?” he sputters. “You play the freaking _piano_ as a rebellion, you said so yourself.”

Anna rolls her eyes, turns sideways, and lifts her shirt so that Dean can see her ribcage—and the image inked onto her skin. “It's a spiral galaxy and a Sagan quote. I got it when I was twenty years old, the same year I dyed my hair neon blue and married a Buddhist scholar in training named Floyd.”

“I remember Floyd,” Cas reminisces. “He was nice.”

Anna grins. “Sadly got a little too wrapped up in his studies and I got bored.”

“You're kidding,” Dean says.

Anna shrugs, lowering her sweater once more. “Nope. Now, I'm not saying that Sam should get a tattoo or marry a dude with a topknot. But speaking as someone who's become an expert in pissing off authority figures, just let him do his thing for a while. It'll be a lot less unpleasant that way.” She whips around to face a wilting Jess. “You too, miss. Support him or you'll lose him. Got it?”

Jess nods. “Okay,” she says, sniffling.

Anna puts her arm around Jess' quivering shoulders and helps her to her feet. “Come on. I'll set up the guest bedroom for you to stay. I'll be right down the hall.” They disappear inside.

Dean remains stoic for twenty seconds, and then he begins to shake with anger. He's stopped by sudden pressure on his forearm—Castiel's hand.

“Come on, Dean. I'll walk you to your place.”

“I want to be alone.”

“We've both been drinking and smoking. I'd prefer to see that you get back safely; I will sleep on your couch, if you'll allow it.”

Dean can barely move from anger, but he forces his shoulders up and then down—a shrug. “Do whatever you want, Cas,” he manages through gritted teeth.

“Very well. Let's go home.”

.

A thick fog has rolled in by the time Dean and Cas reach the Winchester house. It's so early in the morning that the streets are utterly empty of cars, and it feels as though they're the only two people on earth. Dean has been quiet the entire time, walking in a brisk and consistent manner. Castiel has kept pace, hands in pockets, staring at his feet.

When they reach the house, Dean stops short as he feels the anger overwhelm him and burst free of its restraints. He turns and hits the wood siding as hard as he can—a  _thud-smack_ as his fist connects with the house. Dean feels a frightening intensity pushing his fists forward, again and again. Blow upon blow upon blow, leaving splatters of blood in the rough shape of his knuckles. A guttural howl escapes from his lips. Destroying something just feels so  _good—_

And then his fist stops, lurching against his momentum. It's Castiel, hand on Dean's wrist, and before Dean knows it he's been slammed backwards against the wall with a force that knocks the breath from his lungs. All he can see in front of him is a pair of blue eyes.

“Dean! Stop. It. Right—ow!” Castiel yelps as Dean grabs his hand and twists, ducking out from between his arms and shoving Cas up against the side of the house. Automatic reflexes kick in; one forearm pins Castiel's sternum and the other hand holds his wrists together, bone-grindingly tight. Nostrils flaring, Dean gets right up in his friend's face and snarls like a goddamn animal.

Castiel doesn't flinch.

Dean is still breathing like a bull about to charge, but those blue eyes never waver, never dilate, never fill with tears. Nothing. Dean feels Cas slowly exhale, and in that moment it's like all the air gets sucked out of his lungs, too. The vacuum seems to pull him forward and suddenly he's mashing his lips against Castiel's, hungry and desperate and furious and animalistic.

_Destroying something just feels so good_ .

It takes a second for Dean to realize what's happening, as adrenaline and endorphins surge through his brain and down to his groin. He opens his eyes and jerks backward, and every spot on his body where he'd been pressed against Castiel feels naked and cold.

Cas wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Time slows and then stops.

“Dean—”

Dean shakes his head and runs to the front door. He gets his key in the lock on the first try, flees inside, slams the door, and finally lets his knees buckle beneath him. He stays prostrate, leaning back against the door, as he listens to Castiel knock and say his name for what seems like hours.

Unable to reply, Dean squeezes his eyes shut and waits through every agonizing moment until he hears Castiel's footsteps retreat and fade. He remains on the floor, silent and trembling, until the sun's rays begin to shine through the hallway windows.

.

Cas doesn't hear from Dean the next day, nor the one after. It's a bit of a shock. 

He has seen or spoken to Dean almost every day for the past two and a half months. Even if it's just been texting back and forth, they've been in almost constant contact—and now there's nothing. The silence overwhelms him, distracts him, and makes it clear how much Dean has become part of the daily grind. Castiel stares at his notification-less phone and feels a swell of sadness; for once, he thought he actually pulled it off. He made a friend, a true friend—and now that friend won't return his calls.

And as for the reasons why, well. Castiel tries so very hard not to think about that.

He chips away at the pages of John Winchester's journal. He completes other research work for the university, staying late at the lab. He puts on a playlist of piano concertos and lets the music carry him away.

Cas replays the night over and over again in his mind, cursing the instinct that made him reach out to stop Dean's breakdown. If only he hadn't pushed Dean against that wall. If only he'd said something different, in that moment after—something that would have stopped Dean from running away.

_ I'm sorry  _ is the first thing which always comes to mind, even though it's irrational. Castiel knows he has nothing to apologize for. Dean was the one who— _ assaulted  _ is probably the correct term, but it feels nauseating to even consider. It wasn't an attack. It was a cry for help.

Dean may never speak to him again. Castiel is back at square one, just with a burned journal that he keeps working on. So instead of speaking to his friend, he learns about Dean's father, page by painstaking page.

John Winchester was a brutally honest diarist. His writing reeks of desperation—of a man documenting his life not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Castiel has tried to resist the urge, but he's taken to reading the pages as they come out of cleaning. He deposits each into a crisp plastic sleeve, isolating that particular moment in its own little bubble, and he reads. He's found out about John's proclivity for scotch, about his hunting trips in the woods with his friend Bobby, and caught brief mentions of work. The pages have sketched out a man who was distracted, insecure, unsure about fatherhood—but trying. Trying to be a good man.

Castiel sits in his lab and reads the entries from after the fire which killed Mary, and fights back tears as he learns the extent of John's insane grief. Dean has talked, a little, about moving around and living in motels while growing up; now Castiel knows why. John Winchester dragged his sons back and forth across the country because he ran away.

The Winchester men, it seems, have many traits in common. They are good-looking; they are stubborn; they will take a bullet on your behalf. When chaos descends upon them they will fight until they can fight no more, at which point they will bolt like frightened deer.

_ I can't go back to that house,  _ John writes. _ I made Bobby promise to pack it all up. The boys might want some of the stuff someday. I will never touch it again. We will never go back. It will kill me to walk where Mary once lived. _

_ Dean wants to know where Mom is. He won't stop asking. I can't answer. _

_ What do I say? _

_ What the fuck do I say? _

Castiel closes his eyes against the image of little Dean, so lost and hurt and confused. He wishes he could wrap his arms around that little boy, and feels a flash of bizarre tenderness for the man that boy has become. 

.

Sam doesn't cheat on Jess the night of the party. He does it a week later, on a Saturday afternoon.

He goes to Ruby's place to return her bus pass; she swings the door open, her ink-black eyes glittering and beautiful hands smelling of pot. They share a joint, take half a tab of ecstasy each, and sit on Ruby's ratty old couch giggling at _Robot Chicken_ and overanalyzing why it isn't funny, _except it is_. 

Sam spent school days in anti-drug seminars and knows his shit from several years of college. He knows the word  _euphoria_ , but he's never felt so incredibly light and beautiful and free. The dust particles spinning in the sunlight look like sparkles of gold, suspended in midair as if by magic. He's so busy watching them that he doesn't realize Ruby's gotten up until the music starts. The song has a beautifully apocalyptic high bass line and a hypnotic beat, and Sam watches entranced as Ruby spins and dances her way back to the couch—the way her hair flies around her face, the carefree smile framing her white teeth, the way her shirt rides up a little to show off her smooth stomach and flawless skin. Sam imagines its softness before he even reaches out to touch her.

_Oh my god, that skin._

Something primal takes over, and suddenly Ruby is fumbling with the buttons on Sam's shirt and she's already topless and he just wants to be against her, climb into her, feel her skin against his. Every contact point is a bolt of lightning. They press their naked torsos together, hands exploring every curve, and Ruby's tugging at his hair and Sam's running his teeth lightly across her jawbone and then their first kiss shoots pleasure through them like electric shocks. Sam barely feels Ruby undo his pants; he's consumed with the feeling as he runs his hands over her body again—down her ribs, dipping in with her waist, continuing down past her hips to her impossibly gorgeous legs and then he's inside her and his whole body is alive and alert as they move and moan and can't contain their cries, and it's perfect—a perfect moment of bodies and skin and sweat and primordial lust.

When Sam gets home that night he sees the bus pass on the kitchen table, waiting to be taken back to its rightful owner, forgotten right from the start.

That's how it happens the first time.


End file.
